Justifying The Ends
by Lang Noi
Summary: Just because the courier has the fate of the Mojave wasteland on her shoulders doesn't mean she has to take it on alone. That's what friends are for, no matter how dysfunctional they all are. Oneshot series, no pairings.
1. Novac

Well, it's been a while, hasn't it? This would be my first foray into the world of Fallout, mostly as a result of getting the game not too long ago and watching helplessly as it devoured my other fandoms.

Don't worry, this shouldn't be too long, since it's basically a bunch of one-shots bunched together.

* * *

><p><strong>Novac<strong>

* * *

><p>When Boone first saw her, he wasn't even slightly impressed.<p>

Five-foot-nothing, slanted eyes, black hair, slight frame, and a Vault 21 jumpsuit did not make for an intimidating picture in Novac, or anywhere else. The little floating eyebot trailing her didn't seem to be any more intimidating, even considering the laser cannon slung under its armored shell. The two arrived in town with barely any fanfare, greeting people as they went. Even if the robot gave people the creeps, the girl was friendly enough and didn't seem to want to cause any trouble.

He heard, through whispers from those townsfolk who would still talk to him, that she'd singlehandedly cleared out the Primm problem—killing every mercenary in the entire town with nothing but a varmint rifle and a 9 mm pistol that had seen _much_ better days. There might have been a baseball bat involved at some point, but apparently that part had come from No-Bark, and he wasn't about to trust anything the local lunatic said.

But whatever she'd accomplished, it wasn't important. Boone's world had narrowed—if someone wasn't an enemy, they could be safely ignored. He was the night shift lookout—that was the end of the entire affair.

And then, for whatever stupid reason, she climbed Dinky the Dinosaur with her robot and _pestered_ him.

He'd been startled at first, of course. "Goddamn it! Don't sneak up on me like that. What do you want?"

She didn't hesitate. It was like she didn't even register that he had at least eight inches on her and could have blown her head off if his finger had been on his trigger. She just quirked her lips in a weird little half-smile, eyebrow raised, and asked, "Expecting visitors?"

He forced himself to calm down. "Yeah. But not like you." Who the hell was supposed to expect a tiny Asian woman and her pet flying robot to pop up behind him, anyway?

Boone had never been smart, exactly. He was a gifted sniper and a steady soldier, but he was not going to win any sort of intelligence competition and knew it. But still, an idea came to mind then, and he seized on it. "Huh. Maybe it should've been you I was expecting all along. Why are you here?"

The woman frowned briefly, and Boone knew instantly that he was being examined like some new gun. She was trying to get a read on him, figure out of he was trustworthy or destined for the scrap heap. But then, sunglasses tended to get in the way of that kind of plan, given the whole "can't seem to see their eyes" problem.

Finally, she said, "If you're looking for someone in particular, I could tip you off if I see them."

Safe answer. Perceptive, too, and easily responded to. With sarcasm. "Yeah, well, if you see anybody wearing Legion crimson or a lot of sports equipment, you just let me know." Boone's frown deepened. "You still haven't answered my question."

The smile came back, despite his near-growl. This woman was about as smart as a pile of bricks. "Just looking around."

"There's nothing up here." Useless, then. She wasn't going to help.

Once again, she brushed off the blunt retort. "There's a sniper."

Thank you, Captain Obvious. "I think you'd better leave."

This time, the hostility was met with narrowed eyes and a snappish, "Do you treat everyone around here like this?" The eyebot, floating slightly above their heads, beeped as though anxious.

_Click_. She didn't know anything about Novac. Not yet. Even after talking to all those people. That…that was useful. It was a long shot, but Boone was used to those. "Wait. You just got into town. Maybe you shouldn't go. Not just yet."

What was with those damn eyebrows going up and down all the time? Still, she nodded. She'd listen. "Okay. Why is that?"

"I need someone I can trust." Boone told her bluntly was she leaned back against Dinky's mouth to listen. "You're a stranger. That's a start."

"That says something rather disturbing about your town," she said flatly. "You only trust strangers. Why?"

"I said it was a start." Boone replied gruffly. Damn woman, making everything more difficult. "This town…nobody looks me straight in the eye anymore."

"What do you want me to do?" she asked. Ducking and dodging one minute, going straight for the heart on the next move. She was a talker, all right.

Still, the plan had formed. It was enough, right? He was taking a risk in trusting a stranger, but given what had happened to Carla… "I want you to find something out for me. I don't know if there's anything left to find, but I need someone to try.

"My wife was taken from our home by Legion slavers one night while I was on watch." Boone explained with difficulty, his voice low and harsh. The woman straightened suddenly, staring right into his eyes with attention that couldn't be feigned. "They knew when to come and what route to take, and they only took Carla. Someone set it up. I don't know who."

"…You want me to track down your wife?" the woman asked carefully after a moment or two.

"My wife's dead." Boone snapped, forgetting himself for a moment. "I want the son of a bitch who sold her."

There was another long pause. "I see. You probably wouldn't be asking this if she was alive. Even in the Legion." The woman took a deep breath. "What do I do if I find this person?"

That took barely any thought. "Bring him out in front of the nest here while I'm on duty. I work nights." Whoever it was, they were going to pay in blood. "I'll give you my NCR beret to put on. It'll be our signal, so I know you're standing with him. And I'll take care of the rest. I need to do this myself."

There. Done. _Accept_ already.

"I'll see what I can do to help."

Breathe out. She's in. "Good. I'll make it worth your while. And one more thing. We shouldn't speak again. Not until it's over."

He handed her the beret, watching her face go completely still. Then watched as she began pulling items out of her pockets to make room—gecko hide, brahmin steak, whatever else was around. She piled the items onto her robot and, finally, slipped the beret into her pocket. And pulled out bobby pins. What for, he didn't care.

Once she was prepared, he added, "No one in town knows that I know what happened to my wife. Best they never know. Or the Legion will be after me next."

She nodded. Then paused, halfway down the stairs. "I never caught your name."

"…Craig Boone." He replied. Courtesy, courtesy… "You?"

"Meda Li. I'll be back."

And she was. He didn't know what happened, really, until he'd seen Li lead a drowsy Jeannie May Crawford out in front of his post at a little after eleven. Then she had looked up, _right at him_, and then turned to the old woman with a look like Death itself.

He never found out what Li told Jeannie May Crawford in those last few seconds. And after the hat went on, the only other one who knew was missing a head.

He'd confronted her later. Li shoved the bill of sale into his hands and never explained anything else. There was nothing that needed to be said.

But when she came by the next day, to return his beret and announce that she was heading toward the next stop on her Mojave tour—Nipton—she asked if he wanted to come along. Less than four minutes later, Boone left Novac with a courier and an eyebot in tow.

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><p><strong>AN:** R&R, folks!


	2. Nipton

Writing chapters in advance doo-dee-doo... And if anyone's wondering, there's really no reason for the courier to skip Nipton and head straight to Novac. I just thought it worked out better.

Why am I writing these things as short as I am? I really don't know.

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><p><strong>Nipton<strong>

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><p>"<em>I'm going to wear your head like you wear that dog's."<em>

An hour after the fact and Boone still couldn't believe she'd actually said it.

Nipton was a ruin a long time before they'd actually reached the town. Li talked to the raving Powder Ganger who had fled it in a screaming panic. Boone couldn't make heads or tails of his story, but apparently Li had talked to No-Bark back in Novac and was some kind of lunatic linguist. He didn't ask after she'd confirmed that Vulpes Inculta was involved. Any kind of Latin was a warning bell.

He didn't ask a lot of things when the Legion was involved.

"Who is this guy, anyway?" she'd asked while looking the robot—ED-E, whatever—over for damage. They were going to head into Nipton anyway, though she had seemed edgy about doing so with a known First Recon sniper at her side. Something about instant hostility and too much shooting. Like that _mattered_.

"He's the Legion's head spy." Boone had replied, likewise checking his rifle for any possible problems. Granted, it probably needed a new stock, but it wasn't like they exactly had access to materials or the knowledge to swap out parts with unfamiliar rifle models. So far, anyway. "Sneaks into places, screws up NCR lines and generally is a waste of air. He'll be dead by the end of today."

"...You know, I think you'll need to hang back for this first part," she'd said, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye. "I'm going to see what I can do, first."

"What?" Stupid, _stupid_. What the hell was she thinking? "You'll end up dead, or worse."

"Only if I don't make the right call." Li had argued. "And you'll just be far enough behind that you're the surprise backup."

_Spotters do not work like that._ "And if you screw up?"

"Then I raise my arm, you get to pick his eyeballs out from a hundred yards and behind cover, and he gets to wonder how I did that as I beat his men to death with a baseball bat. Or not."

This was a really stupid plan. She wasn't stupid. She was too good with locks for that. At least, he'd thought so. Now he wasn't sure. "You're crazy."

"I'm keeping my options open." Li had replied. "Me, you, and ED-E are going to get killed if we all bunch up down there together. Better just one than everyone."

_Fucking hell no_. The day he let a woman walk straight into _their_ arms and didn't say a word against it was the day put away his beret and joined the Fiends. "No."

Li frowned. But it wasn't out of anger—dammit, she was recalculating, again. Which meant she wasn't going to listen to a damn word he said. "How quietly can you pick them off?"

_Oh, hell. Not again._ "Where are you going with this?"

"…I'm still going to talk to Vulpes. I need to know what the Legion's planning, and you can't interrogate a corpse." Her mouth quirked oddly. "But if you're so worried, pick them off while I talk to him. There's no way he'd let all of his men listen in, and that's where you and ED-E can destroy them. As for Vulpes…I can put down someone like him."

Nothing he said would get her to just drop the whole idea. While he could have, say, knocked her out and carried her back to Novac to join her fellow crazy person, it would have probably killed them both more certainly than the Legion ever could. So, eventually, he relented.

She went into Nipton, apparently alone. The eyebot didn't count. But all the while, Boone slunk from house to house and shredded the Legionnaires with a hunting knife.

Still, at least a third of the group stuck around while she talked to Vulpes. It brought Boone closer by necessity—he was running out of targets and patience in equal measure.

He got to witness it, then.

"Don't worry, I won't have you lashed to a cross like the rest of these degenerates. It's useful that you happened by." For a Legion thug, the guy was a twig. And had a voice like a snake.

"I want you to witness the fate of Nipton, to memorize every detail. And then, when you move on?" Boone's trigger finger itched just at the memory. He hadn't blown a Legionnaire's head off in a while and it was starting to get really annoying. "I want you to teach everyone you meet the lesson that Caesar's Legion taught here, especially any NCR troops you run across."

"And these would be…?" Li had prompted, with a tone dripping sarcasm.

"Where to begin?" Vulpes had murmured. "That they are weak, and we are strong? That much was known already." His stance shifted. "But the depths of their moral sickness, their dissolution? Nipton serves as the perfect object lesson."

"Really." Not cowed in the slightest. So, on top of having nerves of steel, her head was full of rocks.

"Nipton was a wicked place, debased and corrupt. It served all comers, as long as they paid." Boone had used every ounce of his self-control to not shoot him right then. "Profligate troops, Powder Gangers, men of the Legion such as myself—the people here didn't care. It was a town of whores."

Twitch. Twitch.

"For a pittance, the town agreed to lead those it had sheltered into a trap." Here, Vulpes smirked. "Only when I sprang it did they realize that they were trapped inside it, too."

"You captured everyone." Not a question so much as a statement. She didn't approve.

He never noticed. "Yes, and herded them into the center of town. I told them their sins, the foremost being disloyalty. I told them that Legionaries are disloyal, some are punished, the others made to watch. And I announced the lottery."

A drop of ice seemed to make its way down Boone's spine. He'd known, of course, but this guy…

"Each clutched his ticket, hoping it would set him free. Each did nothing, even when 'loved ones' were dragged away to be killed." That _sick fuck_.

"You killed innocent people." Li knew it, too, but her voice didn't change. It had gone flat.

Vulpes laughed. Laughed, like it was some kind of _game_. "Innocent? Hardly. Cowardly, though. They outnumbered us, yet not once did they try to resist. They stood and watched as their fellows were butchered, crucified, and burned, one by one."

Li didn't move then. ED-E had bumped into Boone's knee and beeped anxiously.

"They stood and hoped their turn would not come. Each cared only for _himself_."

Boone, remembering a certain hut with bark scorpions and bear traps everywhere that he had completely avoided (particularly after seeing the disintegrated remains of _someone_), disagreed.

"It's interesting that you say that." Li had said, looking all around her. "But, you see, I don't agree with your last point." Her eyes narrowed a little and she glanced pointedly at the dog-skin hood he wore. "And I don't like you. Therefore… I'm going to wear your head like you wear that dog's."

Something in her stance _shifted_. By then, Boone had already drawn a bead on Vulpes' forehead and obligingly blew his eyeballs out the back of his head. ED-E charged, playing his little battle tune, and Li damn near disappeared.

He found out that day that she was very good with a machete.

And she _did_ get that hat, though she immediately tossed it into the pile of burning tires to join Vulpes' victims.

Nipton wasn't a nice, safe town. It wasn't Novac or Goodsprings. But no matter how terrible the people had been, no one deserved _that_.

She walked up to him after they'd finished cutting down what…remained of the crucifixion victims. Most times, there wasn't anything left to save. She looked tired. "Hey, Boone."

"What is it?"

"We should have gone with your plan." _What_ plan? Guns a-blazing was pretty much all he ever used regarding the Legion anyway. No sniper's nest here.

Still, he let her talk. Sometimes people like her just needed to.

"I don't really think I needed to hear Vulpes talk."

_Could have told you that._

"But at least I'm sure now." Li went on, looking at him again.

"Of what?" Boone prompted.

She looked him straight in the eye. "I'm never showing mercy to one of them again. They need to die."

_Could have told you that, too. But at least you're listening now._

"But…" Oh hell. "…if I can destroy them all by turning every ally against them…or even carve Caesar's heart out myself after everything I know about the Legion…well, that would certainly mean karmic justice."

_Uh, what?_

She smiled, but it was bitter. "Don't worry about it."


	3. South Vegas

"Hound Dog" belongs to Elvis Presley, his estate, and anyone who happens to also own the rights to the audio.

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><p><strong>South Vegas<strong>

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><p>"<em>You ain't nothin' but a hound dog,<br>"Cryin' all the time,  
>"You ain't nothin' but a hound dog,<br>"Cryin' all the time,  
>"Well, you ain't never caught a rabbit,<br>"And you ain't no friend of mine…"_

"Please turn that off."

"But ED-E has great reception here!"

"Not the point."

Traveling with the little Asian woman was one of those eye-opening experiences you only had once, Veronica thought.

This was mostly because she'd apparently decided to go on a one-woman crusade against the Fiends a while before Veronica had met her, only to pick up a First Recon sniper, an eyebot, and a Brotherhood of Steel scribe before ever getting close to the bastards. So, then it was a bit of a traveling circus show. Or something. They just needed a dog that shot laser beams from its eyes and they were all set.

Still, they were on their way now. Even if the subject of radios had set her and the sniper to arguing.

Yup, this was a lot better than just hanging out at the trading outpost, even if she apparently didn't know what the Brotherhood was. At all.

"Okay… Boone, you should hang back a bit." Meda said when they arrived at the outskirts of the first Fiend leader's hidey-hole. Veronica tried to remember which one they were supposed to be hunting, but it didn't seem to matter much. "ED-E goes up front to draw them out so you can blow all their heads off."

"And me?" Veronica asked.

"Punching them to death?" Meda suggested. "You and I go up close and take apart anyone Boone can't get in the first two minutes."

She was so absolutely certain they would succeed that Veronica had to laugh. "So, no walking into the gates of Hell yet?"

"We'll get around to the Legion eventually." Meda replied. "Okay, on your marks…"

In the end, it was two kills for Boone, one for ED-E (somehow) and two each for Veronica and Meda, with the scribe punching Driver Nephi's head off with one well-aimed blow. A couple of the other Fiends had knife marks everywhere—probably Meda's doing.

Meda crouched over Driver Nephi's headless body for a minute, grabbing the man's signature golf club and giving it an experimental swing. She grinned. "Boone, is there still a bounty on this guy's head?"

"Yeah." Boone replied, walking up to survey his work.

Meda paused as though something had just occurred to her. "…Crap, now we have to figure out where it _went_."

All in all, it was a good day. Sure, once they got to the nearest NCR outpost there was a bit of haggling over the exact price of the head of a dead man, but that was kind of fun, too. Veronica got to see a corporal argued down by a woman half his size, and followed Boone around the camp as the various troopers stood around in awe and/or worshipped the ground he walked on.

Sure, a couple of them tried to hit on her, but you couldn't have everything, she supposed.

The next week was calmer—wandering Freeside (which was at least less dangerous than the radscorpion-hunting spree Meda had suggested first, even if Boone was annoyed) led them to the Kings. And a robot dog, which Veronica spent a lot of time petting. He was adorable, in a scientific abomination sort of way.

But that wasn't the highlight of the day.

Meda had actually stopped dead in her tracks on the way to Mick and Ralph's, listening to ED-E's radio the whole time, and said, "Where do you think we can find a piano?"

Boone's totally blank expression was hilarious. "…What's a piano?"

And they spent the rest of the day looking for one. Veronica had no idea why, but it was fun spending the time with a pair of mismatched goofballs. Well, one goofball courier and a sniper who might have had his sense of humor surgically removed (which was odd, since Meda was the one with still-healing cranial scars).

Fun times were to be had.


	4. Freeside

Oddly enough, Veronica's segments at this point in the series are the shortest. This will change.

* * *

><p><strong>Freeside<strong>

* * *

><p>"You're from the Brotherhood of Steel." Meda said after a long moment.<p>

Well, it wasn't as though Veronica had flat-out told her as much. Oh wait, she had. "Yep."

"And you hate the Legion." Meda went on.

"I'll give the speech again if I have to, you know. Don't make me give the speech again." It had been a good speech, too.

"Okay, okay." Meda shrugged, still leading the group out of Freeside. "Honestly? Unless you told me you were actually a Legionnaire—unlikely, given the lack of a Y-chromosome—you're okay in my books."

That wasn't exactly what Veronica had expected.

Then Meda started backpedaling. "I mean, I was born in the NCR, yeah, but I kind of left for a reason." She paused, rubbing her neck. "More job opportunities for one, but I didn't like a lot of the people in charge back in California. Kimball, for example."

"So you _didn't_ get thrown out after an incident involving the ammunition stores like you told Boone?"

"…Um, that happened too." Meda laughed nervously. "But seriously, if it was just me being an idiot, I'd probably still be there. Did you tell Boone about the whole Brotherhood thing?"

"I'm not that stupid." Veronica said dryly. "The First Recon badge on his hat is kind of a giveaway."

The man in question was far ahead of them, being accompanied through the outskirts of New Vegas by ED-E and the King's dog, who was a real sweetheart once you got past the fact that he could bite a man's arm off. There had been a bit of an incident regarding the aforementioned hat and Rex's sensibilities, but they had eventually gotten it sorted out after telling Rex that, no, it wasn't a hat—it was a _beret_, and that made it all better. And Veronica's was a hood, so he wasn't allowed to hassle her about it.

"And if he asks?" Meda pointed out.

"Well, if he didn't think you were a mercenary with the outfit _you_ have on, I don't think he's going to bother me about my robes." Veronica said.

Meda giggled. The mercenary outfit didn't really suit her at all—mostly because the woman she'd pulled it off of had been about six inches taller and had, before an energy blaster had disintegrated her inside her clothes, been the curvy type. Meda was a stick in comparison. "So true. Well, Veronica, are you going to need to head back to the Brotherhood of Steel anytime soon?"

_Given that they assigned me to be a procurement specialist for the foreseeable future?_ "No."

"…Is something wrong?" Meda asked.

Veronica knew when to put on a brave face. This was one of those times. "I'm fine, Meda. Thanks for asking, though." _Though_… "Um. This is kind of a big deal for me…"

"Yeah?"

_Well, get it out quickly._ It's probably better that way. "If you ever find a really pretty dress—you know, like the ones the White Gloves wear—could I have it?"

Meda blinked. Then, as the realization hit her, she began to smile. "Definitely. I'm sure we'll find something."

"Thank you!" Veronica nearly squeaked. _Yes!_

"No problem." Meda was still smiling. "Let's catch up with the boys before they get in over their heads fighting geckos or something."


	5. Interstate 15

Cass's are pretty short, too. Drat.

Also, yes, the courier is terrible at using guns.

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><p><strong>I-15<strong>

* * *

><p>In retrospect, it was kind of funny that Cass, of all people, was being called upon to teach Li how to shoot. They barely got along on most days, mostly because the smaller woman was extremely leery of any alcohol stronger than wine and, as such, tended to avoid Cass as though she was a deathclaw. With that in mind, it would have made more sense to ask that sniper she'd been dragging around since before Cass had ever met her.<p>

Well, maybe if he hadn't decided to nearly drink himself to death the previous night. Veronica was making sure he didn't get any further than one foot in the grave, so that left Cass to be the new teacher and make a mental note to test Boone's tolerance for whiskey later on.

"You use both hands for a shotgun, you know." Cass said dryly, watching Li hold the gun like an idiot. "Otherwise that gun's gonna knock your arm out of joint."

"Thanks for the tip." Li muttered, repositioning the 12-gauge shotgun so the butt was resting against her right shoulder.

"Crouch if you need to keep it steady." Cass added, watching the tip of the gun waver like it might have if Boone had tried shooting while blind drunk. Cass, having never had that problem, just thought it looked sloppy.

Li did so. The barrel did lazy figure-eights in spite of it.

Cass sighed. "What, you never used a long gun before?"

"Not really." Li admitted, still trying to aim at the billboard advertising Nuka-Cola and proclaiming that Caesar was going to get a boot up his ass at some point in the near future, courtesy of the NCR. "I've always been a knife person."

Cass, who had seen Li whip a ceramic kitchen knife out of a jacket sleeve and immediately start disemboweling the nearest Freeside thug without pause, decided to ignore that. "Well, now's a great time to learn."

Li sighed, glancing back at Cass, who was crouched slightly to her right. Then her mouth quirked into a sad half-smile. "You kind of remind me of my oldest sister right now."

"Huh. Kinda weird—I never had any, you know." Cass remarked. Her dad had been a widower not long after Cass had been born. But it wasn't all bad—Cassidy Caravans would never have gotten as big as it did with too many mouths to feed. Before the entire operation had been destroyed, at any rate. She still owed Li for gathering all the information about the conspiracy between the Van Graffs and Crimson Caravan Company.

Li chuckled. "Yeah, well, growing up with three big sisters and two big brothers made me a little sensitive to that kind of stuff. Hell, I think the oldest is a older than you, now. Just had her first kid when I left the NCR five years ago."

Kind of a kick in the head, but Cass shrugged it off. "What's it like growing up with three older sisters?"

"It was okay, I guess." Li said. She readjusted her grip on the shotgun. "They were all five to eleven years older than me, though. They were always going off to party without me. Even Emmy, and she went blind in one eye after a Brahmin kicked up a rock at the wrong time."

Cass whistled. "Ouch. You know how they're doing now?"

"Everyone's married and settled down." Li said mildly. "I think Vinny—youngest out of the boys—got married first, since he's got a little girl who just got started walking. Then Josie—oldest sister, obviously—had a girl, too. Kathy got married after I left. So did Emmy and Vance. That just leaves me."

"So you went out on this courier job to get married?" Cass asked, trying to avoid sounding too annoyed. She was trying to distract her from the fact that, frankly, Li sucked at shooting.

Li shook her head. "I joined up with the Mojave Express so I could finally do something different. The NCR pissed me off a lot while I lived back there, so I guess it was as much to get away as to find some adventure." Her smile became rather twisted. "Guess I found it."

"No kidding." Cass said. "So, are you gonna stop skirting around the issue and actually get to shooting anytime soon?"

"Don't rush me."

"A radscorpion would have you for lunch by now."

"Oh, shut up."

_CRACK_.

"…How the hell do you miss a billboard at a hundred feet?"

"_Shut up already!_"


	6. Gomorrah

Girl's night out tends to be a little weird in New Vegas.

* * *

><p><strong>Gomorrah<strong>

* * *

><p>"I have to <em>what<em>?"

"Sorry, ma'am, it's standard procedure. Please relinquish all your weapons before entering the casino."

Cass snickered, already knowing where this was going. She'd already handed over her shotgun and her machete (which was actually Li's, who had loaned it to her upon realizing that Cass actually fought in melee with a kitchen knife), hunting knife, baseball bat, and .44 revolver, but Li…well, this was going to get interesting.

As far as Cass could tell, Li was only going in to chat with the leader of the Omertas—whatever the guy's name was—about something or other that Li had mentioned while Cass was drunk. This was about to become a much bigger hassle than it had to be.

Without another word, Li rolled up her sleeves and got to work piling her weaponry up on the table.

_Clank_.

"A machete?"

_Clang_.

"_Another_ machete?"

_Squelch_.

"_What the hell is that?_"

"Shut up or I'll put my boot somewhere _really_ uncomfortable."

Cass doubled over laughing. Trust Li to think of a radscorpion steak as weaponry.

Li was bright red with frustration. Or maybe it was the alcohol—she'd said something about how her family tended to have…_reactions_ around whiskey. "Dammit, Cass, stop laughing."

"Not gonna happen!" Cass cackled, slapping her knee.

The poor Gomorrah doorman was getting more and more embarrassed by the entire affair. It was possible that he'd never seen such a rowdy group trying to get into the casino before, or at least the rowdiest all-female one. And never with so many weapons.

"Veronica, make Cass stop laughing!"

"_Caaaaaaass_." Veronica whined playfully. "Give her a break."

"Never!"

_THUD._

Everyone paused for a moment.

"Is that the super-sledge?" Veronica asked into the silence.

"Yep," said Cass, hefting it. "Jesus, where the hell did you _put_ this?"

Li gave them a Look. "You don't want to know. At all."

…_Nope. Let's get on with our lives. _"Soooo…still meeting that one guy?"

"Yep." And Li ran off before the footman could so much as yelp. Cass tossed Oh, Baby! on the table and followed the little Asian woman at a trot, as did Veronica, before the table groaned and split under the impact.


	7. Nellis

...Arcade is one of my favorite companions in New Vegas. Less useful than Boone, but hey, gauss rifle. :D

* * *

><p><strong>Nellis<strong>

* * *

><p>"Get down!"<p>

_What a way to start the day._ Arcade thought as artillery shells exploded all around them.

Oh, it had started simply enough. Ambassador Crocker had asked Meda to go negotiate with an out-of-the-way tribe in the northeast of the Mojave. He'd just forgotten to mention that said tribe was the Boomers, and every last one of them seemed to be armed with _pre-war artillery_. As a result, he, Meda, and the resident Enclave eyebot were going to spend their day getting shot at by rocket-propelled grenades, mortar rounds, and several different types of munitions Arcade wasn't sure he'd ever be able to identify.

The most annoying part was that, when you really paid attention, the Nellis Air Force Base wasn't actually that far from New Vegas, and the Boomers' killzone was actually restricted to about three hundred feet around their perimeter. It really wasn't that far, particularly not for an experienced wastelander, who generally got by on a day-to-day basis by running away from anything bigger than a radscorpion. Sure, there were bodies strewn everywhere (usually in bits) within that radius, but given the tip they'd gotten from the enterprising wastelander standing just outside, they probably weren't going to die.

_Probably_.

_BOOM. BOOM. BOOM-BOOM. BOOMBOOMBOOM. BOOM._

And then, eerie silence.

"You okay?" Meda asked, shaking the cement dust out of her hair. She was carrying ED-E under one arm to make sure the robot didn't float off and get blown into a million scraps of circuitry and Hellfire armor.

Arcade, who had ended up having to sprawl flat on the ground to avoid being suddenly six inches shorter, muttered, "All limbs accounted for. You know, when I said I'd be happy to help you make the Mojave a better place, I didn't think we'd be at risk of perforation via shrapnel _quite_ so often."

"Hey, at least you're not him." Meda replied, nodding at a partial skeleton about two feet from Arcade's head. It seemed to be missing about two-thirds of its ribcage.

"Thank God for small mercies, then." Arcade said dryly. "Though the further we venture into this deathtrap, the more I wonder if it's simply a matter of time and concentrated firepower." He clambered back to his hands and knees, dusting off his labcoat, and straightened his glasses with a sigh.

"Well, we're halfway there." Meda said, ignoring his fatalism. "See that other bombed-out house? That's next."

Arcade glanced up. There was, at best, one semi-solid wall still standing in that entire building. At least in this one there was a corner, even if what remained of that "cover" was about four feet tall and two feet wide on each side, and barely big enough for Meda and ED-E to cower behind. _He'd_ just been lucky that none of the flying shards of near-molten steel had hit him while he was lying on the ground.

_Every once in a while, the world just has to remind me that I volunteered for this._ "Ready when you are," he said, getting his feet back under him.

Meda nodded. Then, with her back still to the wall, she took one final look at the main gate to the Boomers' settlement. Then she leapt over the remains of the rest of the wall and ran. Arcade followed and quickly gained speed—his legs were longer, after all, even if he wasn't as accustomed to running for his life.

ED-E jerked free of Meda's grasp and floated on ahead as they finally stopped at the next scrap of cover. The stubborn Enclave eyebot zoomed off, landing near the base of the rust-red fence that marked the edge of Boomer territory. It beeped.

_That thing has to be taunting me._

Arcade hit the wall, wincing as Meda barreled into his side and nearly smashed him against the concrete—why in the world was she _still_ carrying that super-sledge around?—and again, explosions rocked the ground. Meda growled something indecipherable and shoved his head down as a shell detonated barely ten feet away. Something about him being too tall, maybe?

_Coming from someone who's barely any taller than a twelve-year-old, that could mean essentially _anyone_._ Arcade didn't argue, though. There was plenty of time for that when they weren't being shot at.

Then the dull thud-boom of artillery ceased again.

"…should've remembered cover _doesn't work like that_, argh…" Meda hissed, sitting back for a moment. Arcade straightened and noticed immediately that she had pulled a doctor's bag out of her pack. She glanced up.

…That's_ going to scar._ Arcade thought blankly. Apparently they hadn't been quite as lucky as he thought, since Meda had a deep, ragged slice along her left cheekbone and a scattered mess of holes in her jacket and pants. Most of them were bleeding, though the facial wound was the worst that he could see. Then again, facial wounds tended to be.

"Can you still run?" he said, rather than ask anything else. It wasn't going to help them at all to attempt to treat apparently-superficial injuries in the middle of what amounted to a killing field.

"Yeah." Meda replied, pressing a double-layered wad of bandages to her face. "The rest is less than what I'd get if I was dragged around by a brahmin."

…_That's an execution method _somewhere_, I'm sure._ Arcade thought, but there wasn't time to worry about it. "In that case, what next?"

"See the ditch?" Meda pointed with her free hand, and Arcade glanced back over his shoulder. ED-E was waiting patiently at the bottom of the embankment. "Go for it and don't stop running until you hit the fence."

Arcade sighed. "May I just reiterate that I think this entire excursion has been a bad idea?"

"You're still alive to complain about it, so I guess so." Meda pointed out. "Let's go."

They ran. Well, Arcade ran about halfway before doubling back a bit to grab Meda's leading hand and drag her along. She was limping quickly, but not fast enough. They ended up sliding down the rest of the way. Arcade bounced off the fence and ED-E beeped at him. And Meda, maybe, but he was pretty sure the note of reproach was only for him.

"Well, we're here." Meda said after a moment or two.

Arcade bit back a groan and helped her to her feet. And people called _him_ a hopeless optimist…

ED-E hovered next to Meda's head as she experimentally put weight on her left leg. She wordlessly slung her pack over the eyebot's frame. ED-E beeped and started to float off toward the gate.

"I hope they're friendly enough." Meda said, still wincing as she limped forward. "I can't really fight like this."

"I have a spare energy pistol." Arcade suggested.

Meda sighed. "I think I'll pass. I was so horrible at aiming down the sights that Cass can't even look at me without laughing."

_Well, that certainly explains why she charged at the geckos with a _sledgehammer_ rather than retreating and shooting. And to think I thought she was _sane_._

The Boomer's gate guard was reasonable enough, if stunned that all he'd managed to do was give Meda a number of superficial scrapes. They were escorted to Pearl's quarters, where they got to listen to the predictions of an old woman who was apparently the only one who could keep the rest of the Boomers from splattering them across the landscape. Pearl was an intelligent woman, but past a certain level of stress or injury Arcade found he didn't care much. After that, Pearl pointed them to Pete if they wanted to know the Boomers' history, and Argyll if they didn't want to bleed to death. Arcade overrode Meda's curiosity about their story by dragging her to the nearest thing to an infirmary.

It turned out that all but one of the beds in Argyll's infirmary were full. It had something to do with giant exploding ants and the fact that the Boomers inevitably favored high explosives, which just exacerbated the problem. Arcade just tried to ignore the conversation while he pulled needle-sized pieces of shrapnel out of Meda's leg. At least after he'd added Med-X to the mix she'd stopped twitching every time he tried to extract the damn things.

Twenty minutes later, Arcade said, "I got everything out of your leg, assuming I could find it. What about your arm and face?"

"Can't feel anything still in my cheek." Meda said, prodding at the wound through the bandages and stitches he'd carefully applied. "Doesn't feel like I broke anything, either, or else I wouldn't be able to do this."

"And your arm?" Arcade asked.

"I think there are at least three. And maybe one next to my kidney." At Arcade's disbelieving look, she added, "I was the one who patched Veronica and Boone up before you came along. I can at least figure that much out."

Well, the kidney one was probably going to be too far in for a pair of tweezers, but it wouldn't hurt to make sure the strip of metal didn't touch anything important. "I see. In that case, let me have a look."

As Meda struggled her way out of her jacket and t-shirt, Arcade glanced around at the rest of the patients. Sure, he hadn't gotten permission from Argyll to treat any of them, but it couldn't hurt to at least take a look.

"What are the ants eating?" Arcade wondered, seeing the burns on one man and trying to guess the time left before gangrene set in.

"Gunpowder." Argyll snapped.

_Of course they are._ Arcade turned back to Meda and picked up the tweezers again.

"Ow."

"Stop complaining." Arcade ordered.

"_Ow_."

Well, she wasn't apparently interested in listening. So, Arcade decided to bring up something else. "Where did you get that scar?"

"Which one?" Meda asked, watching him poke at her arm with suspicion.

"I find it very hard to believe that you are unaware you have a ten-inch scar running right down the center of your chest." Arcade said flatly.

"Oh, that." Meda shifted uncomfortably. "Open-heart surgery back when I was seven."

…_What?_ "It was a congenital heart defect, I imagine," he said, more to fill the silence than anything.

"Yeah. The doctors said it probably would have killed me by the time I turned ten if my parents couldn't pay for surgery." She shrugged. "So my sisters kidnapped me in the middle of the night and took me to the Followers of the Apocalypse outpost in Los Angeles. I guess they were pretty good at puppy-dog eyes, since I'm still alive."

"Ah. I can see why you'd help out Julie while you were in Freeside, then." Arcade's mind whirled. More than once, he'd wondered why a Courier who'd been shot in the head would bother helping anyone instead of tracking down their foe (or perhaps just running out of the Mojave altogether). This put a slightly different spin on it.

"Well, you're nice people, which made it easier." Meda said. "And I think the Followers here need all the help they can get."

"That we do." Arcade dropped the last of the shrapnel in a nearby paper cup. Then he went through Meda's pack—still carried by ED-E—and found a roll of bandages. "Well, in spite of the likelihood of fiery and fragmentary death, we appear to have survived. What would you like to do with your tentatively-assured near future?"

Meda giggled—_As much the effects of Med-X as anything_, Arcade thought—and said, "Give me a second." Then she turned. "Hey, Argyll?"

"What do you want, Outsider? I still have patients to treat. Unless you have any medical expertise I could use, which I doubt."

"I have enough medical knowledge to keep from dying out in the wasteland, but Arcade here is actually a qualified doctor. He pulled a lot of metal shards out of me and I'm still alive, so I'll vouch for his skills." Meda said. "Though if I didn't get shot at earlier today, I might have been able to help on my own…"

_Is this what Boone meant when he said he was volunteered by her? Somehow, I think I understand why he and the others decided to stay behind and "keep watch" over the Strip..._

"If what you say is true, you can do us a world of good. Thank you." Argyll replied.

Meda turned back to Arcade and grinned. "You're up, doctor."

Arcade sighed. Then he rolled up his sleeves and walked over to the first man. Swelling, infections, horrid lacerations…it was like he'd never left Old Mormon Fort. Still, there was a job to be done, and he knew how to do it. He waved Argyll over so the other man could watch, and then began treatment.


	8. Jacobstown

Whether or not the courier is insane isn't relevant. The real question is why they follow the courier anyway.

* * *

><p><strong>Jacobstown<strong>

* * *

><p>Cass spoke first. "I really have to ask—we came here to find a brain surgeon for the King's dog, so how in hell did we manage to recruit <em>a nightkin grandmother<em>?"

"Serendipitous circumstance, I'm sure."

"Shut up, Gannon," said Boone.

Meda groaned. "For the love of God, people, we're just helping her find out what happened to her poor bighorners! Boone, help me out here."

"No," said the sniper, who was trying to move as far away from the nearest Nightkin as possible. Unfortunately, the nearest Nightkin happened to be Lily Bowen, who had decided that Boone was her grandson Jimmy and would not be deterred. She was essentially chasing him around Jacobstown with a hand-skit sweater that could have fit a brahmin quite snugly, trying to get him to wear it.

Cass held up her bottle of whiskey, trying to see if she'd have enough to get through the insanity of the day. _Nope_.

Meda made a noise that sounded a little like an angry brahmin and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Okay, okay, maybe this isn't the best idea. But we have to wait around for Rex to get surgery anyway, and anyone who doesn't want to go on the investigation can stay here."

"Why not head back toward Vegas?" Veronica asked. "It's not as though it's really that far away if we hurry."

Meda shook her head, even though Arcade was sure she didn't really like Jacobstown much either. Frankly, despite Marcus's assurances that the super mutants and nightkin in town were at least sane enough to interact with normal people without a problem, the entire place was extremely eerie. And it was very green and even had snow, which Arcade still wasn't used to.

If Arcade ever had to compile a report on a psychological disorder involving being an unrelenting good Samaritan with a tendency toward stabbing, lying, and being nosy, Meda would be Exhibit A. Though maybe that definition was a bit too narrow…

Then Meda spoke the words that would have sent most enterprising wastelanders screaming back to their mothers. "The only way to make it back to Vegas before nightfall is to cut across the mountains. And this entire mountain range is cazador territory."

Cass summed up all their thoughts with one word: "_Fuck_."

"So, I'm going to help Lily with or without your help." Meda shrugged. "With luck, it'll just turn out to be a pack of nightstalkers and we can hand a couple bodies over to Doctor Henry while we're at it. It might even help with the nightkins' schizophrenia, though I'm not sure how."

Arcade wasn't fully convinced that Meda _didn't_ know about the connection between himself and Doctor Henry. Every once in a while, a few comments would slip through, though none of the others ever picked up on it. It sure didn't help his nerves when, after trying to blow off seeing the crashed vertibird, she'd flatly informed him that he was a terrible liar.

"So, ED-E and I are definitely going with Lily." Meda said. "Anyone else?"

There was a thud and a scuffling sound.

"_Get off!_"

"Hold still, Jimmy! I made this just for you."

"Looks like she finally caught him." Veronica said, looking like she was about to double over laughing. "Hey, Boone, need a hand?"

How were they supposed to get a nightkin to let go of their sniper, anyway? It wasn't like they could just pry him loose when her arms were as thick as the tree trunks around Jacobstown. And Meda had already made it clear that she wanted to help Lily, which also meant they couldn't just, say, shoot her.

Fortunately, the courier seemed to have the situation well in hand. She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, "Grandma, what did your baby girl tell you about hugging your grandbabies that hard? You could hurt him like that!"

Lily, who was holding Boone off the ground with one arm and trying to force the sweater over his head with the other, stopped. Her big, blank face seemed to twist. "Oh, Jimmy, grandma's so sorry." She let him go, and he dropped awkwardly onto the ground. "Can you ever forgive me?"

Over the course of about three seconds, Boone somehow ended up standing behind the courier and trying to appear casual, as though he hadn't nearly had the life crushed out of him by an overenthusiastic grandmother with super strength. Veronica started giggling.

"Boone, you're nearly a foot taller than me. _That doesn't work_." Meda hissed, but she still had a big smile plastered on her face for Lily's sake. "He'll be okay, Grandma Lily. Earlier, though… you said there was something wrong with your bighorners?"

While Meda talked the nightkin into chatting about her troubles with her herd lately, Cass started rationing out her supply of whiskey to everyone who wasn't the courier. It looked like they were going to need it.


	9. Lucky 38

Sometimes the plot doesn't need companions. But sometimes the courier does.

* * *

><p><strong>Lucky 38<strong>

* * *

><p>Veronica wouldn't have known that the courier had gotten in at all if not for the fact that she'd heard the water in the bathroom start running. Then the bedroom door opened and she saw Meda's small frame highlighted against the walls—she was going through the wardrobe in the corner. After selecting an outfit, she promptly disappeared again.<p>

Veronica sat up on her cot, yawning, and wondered what time it was. There weren't any windows in the Lucky 38, but the wall clock seemed to think it was about two in the morning. The Pip-Boy Meda had left on the dresser confirmed it.

"When the hell did she leave?" Cass's voice whispered from the top bunk, making Veronica jump.

"I think it was around midnight." Veronica answered, frowning. "You were drunk at the time. I'm just wondering where she went."

"Didn't she take anyone with?" Cass asked, rolling over and slinging her legs off the side of the bed. She groaned—hangovers usually didn't affect her, but apparently two-in-the-morning did.

Veronica shook her head, even though she knew Cass wasn't looking at her. "Not even ED-E. And you know we've never seen her go anywhere without him."

Since the robot had apparently been with Li since before the courier had met Boone, Cass was forced to agree. Actually, it didn't seem possible that the five-foot-nothing woman had actually gone anywhere alone. She always had someone to bounce her personality off of or back her up, even when talking to people like the King.

"Well, I'm going to go see if something's wrong." Veronica said after a moment.

"Great. Tell me all about it when you get back." Cass grunted and flopped back onto her cot.

Veronica sighed and walked out of the room. Hopefully there would be a story behind this, or she was going back to bed and telling Cass the courier was just wandering around the Strip while high on Psycho. Again.

"Hey, Meda? Is everything all right?" Veronica called, walking toward the bathtub that had the curtains drawn. "Meda?"

"I'm here." Meda answered, sounding exhausted. "I'm okay."

"You don't sound okay." Veronica pointed out from outside the shower curtain. She wasn't about to move them without the other woman's permission. Well, unless something drastic happened—like Meda not talking, for example. In _that_ case, she was either drowning or bleeding out, and Veronica didn't intend to let that happen on her watch. She'd be getting an earful from a lot of people, not the least of whom would be Lily and Arcade. And maybe Boone.

"I'm just tired." Meda said softly. "Sorry for waking you up."

"Was your night on the town really that bad?" Veronica asked.

Meda sighed. "If by 'bad,' you mean 'I finally killed the man who shot me in the head and now I have no idea what to do,' then yeah, it was bad."

_Yup, this is one for Cass._ Veronica thought, looking at the clothes Meda had left on the tile floor. The shirt and bra was completely drenched in blood. "Hold that thought."

"Mm-hm," Meda mumbled, and Veronica walked as fast as she could to Cass's bunk.

And when she got there, she poked the ex-caravan driver hard in the shoulder. Cass jerked awake, swearing under her breath, and leveled a glare at the top of Veronica's head. "What is it?"

"I think you might want to hear this." Veronica said. As Cass climbed off the top bunk, she added, "She says she got that guy who shot her."

Cass's mouth dropped open. "Wait, she really killed him?"

"Seems like it. Or else there was another guy who shot her twice in the head recently." Veronica said as Cass gave a whoop. "But she seems pretty messed up right now."

"What for? She got him!" Cass demanded. "She should be celebrating, not moping her life away in the bathtub."

"Just go talk to her." Veronica told her.

"Fine." Cass shrugged. They stopped next to the drawn shower curtain and Cass said loudly, "Li, Veronica says you killed that fucker who shot you. Don't you feel any better?"

"Not really." Meda said listlessly.

"Why not? He deserved it!" Cass said. If she'd had a chance to go after the Van Graffs, she damn well would have taken it even if they hadn't tried to kill her personally yet. Gloria Van Graff was in serious need of shotgun surgery, in the face. And besides, anyone who tied up some innocent woman on a hillside and tried to blow her head off deserved whatever he had coming.

Meda sighed. "I should probably mention I had to seduce him to get close enough to cut his throat."

_Huh. Is that what her problem is?_ "So what?" Cass said. "That guy—Benny or Butch or whatever the fuck his name was—was the head of the Chairmen. Chances are he's fucked over so many people he wouldn't remember anyway. You did the world a favor by doing him in."

"I know." Meda said. "I just feel weird about it."

"What in the world are you yelling about?" Arcade's voice demanded from the other room.

Boone's voice was some kind of indecipherable growl, shortly followed by, "What's wrong?" as the sniper stalked out into the hallway.

"Okay, you know what?" Meda said, for once putting frustration into her voice, "I am not having this conversation from the bathtub. Everyone out until I get dressed, damn it."

And if either Cass or Veronica had any inclination to stay, it died when the courier threw a bullet case in their direction. After that, it was a question of waiting it out.

Ten minutes later, Meda emerged from the bathroom, wearing a men's nightshirt and a pair of shorts and carrying her soiled clothes under her arm. With a glance at her gathered companions, she sighed and said, "We might as well hold this meeting in the kitchen."

After that, it seemed like the four of them spent an hour prying the entire story out of her.

Almost a month ago, she'd been shot and left for dead in a graveyard north of Goodsprings, which she had never gotten around to mentioning to Arcade, all over some Platinum Chip House wanted so badly. A few days led to her first gaining the Powder Gangers' attention after she rallied the townsfolk to defend a Crimson Caravan merchant from one Joe Cobb. Everyone on the Powder Gangers' side was shot to death before she left, chasing a rumor that the men (several Great Khans, led by a New Vegas man in a checkered suit) who had nearly killed her had gone south, toward Primm.

"That Benny must not have been a real killer." Boone commented in the middle somewhere.

"Why do you say that?" Meda asked, though lacking her usual cheer.

"If he had been, he would have remembered how to double-tap." Boone informed her. "And you wouldn't be here."

"Oh."

From there, she had headed to Primm and its infestation of mercenaries. Even after meeting up with NCR forces there, something had possessed her to head into the town proper and clear them out, even though she mentioned that she'd been convinced the soldiers would get them all eventually. A series of near-death experiences at their hands had convinced her that the rescue mission was a bad idea, she said, but she had to finish what she'd started.

"I tried to get help." Meda said. "So I rescued the sheriff and made him help me take them down, but he died when I threw dynamite. He didn't notice the lit fuse."

"That explains why you went around every NCR camp looking for a new sheriff." Cass remarked. "Guilt?"

"A bit." Meda admitted. "He probably would have made it if I didn't scare him into working with me."

"If you had to scare a sheriff into doing his job, he wasn't a good one." Cass said. "So, how'd you get the rest of them?"

"I had two Stealth Boys and a silenced .22 pistol, so I shot most of them in the back." Meda said quietly.

"You can't even hit a billboard with buckshot!" Cass said disbelievingly.

Meda winced. "Well, yes, but it's kind of hard to miss at point-blank range. A couple of them started running, but others tried shooting back. It's really, _really_ not fun to be shot at when you know there's not going to be anyone to back you up, even with a Stealth Boy."

"How does this lead to what happened tonight?" Veronica asked.

"I'm getting there."

Apparently the experience fighting mercenaries had taught her that she needed backup. So, when she found ED-E sitting in the Mojave Express's main office, she had immediately repaired the damaged eyebot with salvaged parts. After that, she and her new friend had skirted Nipton entirely and instead headed for Novac.

"And that's when we met Boone." Meda concluded. "We visited Nipton and found the Legion, then Boulder City and found the Khans who had helped Benny attack me, though we didn't end up having to kill them. Even if they _do_ hate Boone. And Jessup told me the man I was looking for was Benny. And…after a lot of other stuff that you already know…here we are."

"Did Mr. House ever tell you how the Platinum Chip was supposed to be unique?" Arcade asked after a while.

"It lets him reprogram his Securitrons into an actual army, I think." Meda said with a shrug. "I already helped him upgrade the ones on the Strip, but there are probably more somewhere. And he paid me about a thousand caps. And he lectured me about how democracy destroyed the pre-war world."

"Did he explain that comment?" Arcade's curiosity was piqued.

"No. But I don't believe him." Meda said mildly, pulling her knees up to her chest and somehow making herself look even smaller in an already-large dining chair. "I grew up in the NCR, remember? More specifically, my family's kept ten generations of written records since before the Great War, and there were hundreds of early entries on the buildup to it. It wasn't democracy that broke the United States of America. It was the way their world was dying, when all the personal freedoms were being taken away from the people and everything went so bad that they installed turrets in factories to make the workers keep going." Meda shook her head. "Their whole world was going to end no matter who ended up turning the key."

"Back to the story?" Boone interrupted.

"Ah, right. Well, I finally decided to go visit the Tops tonight." Meda mumbled. "I'd been building up to it for ages, you know. What I was going to do, and say. I even visit the prostitutes at Gomorrah a couple of times to make sure I was getting it right."

Cass, who distinctly remembered being followed out of said casino and shot at by Omerta thugs when Li had decided to help a band of chem-addicted prostitutes escape, said nothing.

"So you seduced and killed him." Boone summarized.

"Ring-a-ding-ding, baby." Meda said, twirling a finger idly. "He didn't even see it coming."

"I imagine he was fatally distracted." Arcade said dryly.

"Well, if that was everything that happened, what's wrong?" Veronica asked. "I mean, there's blood all over your clothes, but you're not hurt, right?"

"Other than the fact that my thighs are on fire, no." Meda frowned. "The problem is that now I don't know what to do."

"I didn't know you had a plan in the first place." Arcade pointed out.

Meda made a shushing motion at him. "I only came to Vegas to kill Benny and maybe find out why he wanted me dead. But now that it's over, what am I supposed to do? House wants to raise a Securitron army to fight the Legion and the NCR at Hoover Dam. The NCR wants to keep the Dam. The Legion doesn't actually have a use for it, since they're all stuck in the Stone Age, but they want to make up for their loss four years ago and they're going to kill _so many people..._" She buried her face in her hands. "And everyone seems to want me to do something about it. _I just want to go home!_"

"You're not going to side with the Legion, Meda. And we're not going to let them win." Arcade assured her, all the while wondering if he'd ever be able to tell her about the few Enclave soldiers who could, possibly, be persuaded to help them. Daisy was always so hopeful that she'd be able to fly again… "It's all right."

"I think…I think I know some people who might be able to help." Veronica volunteered hesitantly. There was no guarantee the Brotherhood of Steel would be even slightly willing to help anyone during the upcoming battle, particularly not the NCR. But given what she'd seen so far, it was possible that at least some could be persuaded. Anything was better than no help at all. "If we're going to be helping the NCR fight off the Legion _and_ House's robot army, we need all the help we can get."

"We could help prepare the towns for when the shit starts hitting the fan." Cass suggested, more to make sure Li didn't start crying than anything. "I mean, some of the places we've seen have been pretty defenseless, but there's got to be someone we can help or yell at or _something_ to make sure they don't all get crucified or enslaved or some shit."

"Uniting Freeside and the Strip might help in that endeavor." Arcade added. "I'm sure the Kings aren't interested in sharing their territory with the leather skirt brigade if the Legion does attack."

After a moment of silence, Boone finally added his two caps, "It might help to reinforce the NCR outposts around here. They're struggling, so the Legion's going to probably wipe most of them out if we don't help."

There was a longer pause.

"Meda?" Veronica asked, putting a hand on her shoulder.

Meda gave a hollow sort of laugh, then a sniffle. "God, where would I be without you guys?"

"Dead." Boone said bluntly.

Meda laughed again, straightening and rubbing her eyes. "Okay. Let's continue the war meeting in the morning, when we're all rested and I'm acting less like an idiot."

"What in the world makes you think morning will change that?" Arcade needled gently.

"Shut up, Gannon," she said.

Boone made sure she got to her own bed in one piece—"You can never be too careful when they're like this," he explained later, though no one had asked—and everyone returned to their respective cots. There was always the morning.

And in the morning, well…

"_Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war."_ Arcade thought.


	10. Black Mountain

Introducing the ghoul vaquero! ...To the gaggle of idiots he's going to be following around for the forseeable future.

* * *

><p><strong>Black Mountain<strong>

* * *

><p>Somehow, Cass had expected Li to walk off Black Mountain in pieces, if she did at all.<p>

She had not expected that she would do so with a ghoul mechanic, shaking so badly out of combined nerves and laughter that she couldn't talk. But she was still walking under her own power, which should have been impossible.

"You really have to tell me how you did that." Cass said later, when they were sitting at the base of Black Mountain with their new ghoul friend, Raul.

"Come to think of it, boss, you didn't actually fight your way through the super mutants, did you?" Raul mused. "There wasn't half as much blood as there should have been."

Li shook her head, still shivering. "No, I sorta…walked past them. With a Stealth Boy and, you know, bobby pins." The nervous giggle was back again, and Cass wondered if her sanity had finally decided to give out.

"That explains the lack of explosions, but not you still having both arms, boss." Raul informed her.

"Did you ever see a Mr. Handy there, Raul?" Li asked. "Well, it turns out Tabitha-the-insane-nightkin actually wanted it repaired. And then she and her best buddy Rhonda the Mr. Handy decided to wander off into the wastes and have adventures."

Raul was speechless for a minute or two. Cass's mind went blank at the sheer ridiculousness of it.

"And…that's the story of how I got you out. After I flipped a switch in Rhonda's casing, anyway." Li added. She paused. "Jesus, it seems even more insane when I say it out loud."

"Then what's with the 'traumatized refugee' impression?" Cass demanded.

"Tabitha hugged me out of gratitude or something, and I _still_ can't feel my arms." Li said.

"Oh," said Cass. She glanced at the ghoul. "So, Raul, are you gonna be joining up with our little conspiracy to destroy Caesar's Legion?"

Raul shrugged. "I'm just an old man with a knack for fixing things. But if the boss wants to go on a suicide mission, who am I to say no?"

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Grandpa." Li said sarcastically. Then a scheming smile came to her face. "Hey, Cass, how much do you think Lily will want to meet someone her own age for once?"

Cass burst out laughing.


	11. Nelson

Boone hasn't talked to the courier about the whole "I had to mercy-kill my wife" issue, so she's shouting more out of nationalism than anything.

And this is the last of the pre-written one-shots.

* * *

><p><strong>Nelson<strong>

* * *

><p>Eventually, it was decided that the first thing they needed to do was reinforce as many NCR stations as they could. Neither Arcade nor Veronica were totally comfortable with the idea, for slightly different reasons that both ended with gunshots, but Meda had made it clear that she didn't think any other group had the military force to oppose the Legion at the moment. Or the inclination, if there was a third side in the conflict.<p>

Their plans were almost derailed when Boone, Veronica, Arcade, Rex, and the courier walked into what should have been Nelson.

Li spoke to Ranger Milo as the sun began to set, asking about, for example, why the hell the rangers had apparently been shoved entirely out of the town by the Legion. And why there was, at best, half a squad of them left. For the most part, only Rex seemed to pay any attention to the entire affair, though Boone was always listening with half an ear, even when he was _supposedly_ playing Caravan with Arcade and Veronica (and winning).

Then all of them got to see the courier snarl something at Ranger Milo, flip him the bird, and stomp back over to them.

"Okay, you know what?" she snapped as she sat down on a sandbag, "Fuck him."

"What exactly happened to Nelson?" Arcade broke in before she could really get going—the woman could brood worse than Boone on some days. On days like that, menstrual jokes started flying. Mostly between Cass and Veronica, though.

"Legion busted in, kicked their asses, and strung up a few of their buddies as hostages." Li said bluntly. "And Ranger Milo seems to think the only way to motivate his leftover boys to take the town back is to mercy kill their friends."

Boone went very, very still. It wouldn't have been noticeable to someone who hadn't traveled alongside him for a while, but it was already setting off warning klaxons in Veronica's head.

"Which is something we are _not_ going to do," she said harshly. "From what I can tell, the commander of the Legionaries down there is a guy called Dead Sea, and he has about twenty soldiers with him. And since he's got hostages, he thinks he's safe."

Veronica cracked her knuckles. "When are we leaving?"

"More specifically, what should our plan of attack be?" Arcade asked, hoping to insert a little sense into the conversation. "While I'm flattered that you think we can take on more than twice our number in Legionaries, we need at least a partial understanding of both the terrain and our avenues of approach."

The courier nodded. "I've already looked around. As it is now, there are at least four ridges overlooking Nelson and anyone with experience with a rifle—not me—should be able to pick off most of them easily."

"I'll take it." Boone said quietly.

"They have dogs." Veronica said, thinking back. "A couple of the rookie rangers had bite wounds when Arcade and I went to hand out stimpaks. So that means Rex and I are going in."

"Right." Meda drew one of her rustier knives and began scraping out the rough outline of their plan in the dust. "Think you can circle around without getting caught? I think the dogs and the gunners are at the back, but they won't be looking behind them when the shooting starts."

"For safety's sake, it might be better if both Boone and I are firing from the ridge." Arcade suggested. "Or perhaps you can get Ranger Milo to help us? He ought to be useful somehow, even if he seems to be a worthless commander."

"He's got a rifle—might as well." Meda admitted grudgingly. "If he agrees to help, you're heading down there with Veronica, Rex, and me. Or maybe I circle around alone and you all start the fight." She shrugged. "I can outfight at least some of them with a machete if I have to, but once the ones in the lookout towers see one of us, we can say goodbye to our tactical advantage."

"Not if I get them first." Boone muttered.

"Point taken." Meda said. "So, should we hit them before dawn?"

"Sounds like a plan." Veronica said. "But let me lead the charge this time, all right?"

"Far be it from me to advise saying no to the woman who can punch a man's head off. You're going to be a better distraction than the rest of us." Arcade said mildly. "Just try to lead them away from the hostages and the problem should solve itself. Particularly considering that 'away from the hostages' and 'toward Boone' should be the same direction."

In the early hours of the morning, after the crazy courier had argued Ranger Milo into giving them a chance, Boone sat at the edge of the ridge. He couldn't sleep at all—not for lack of trying, even with Li offering him some of her calming tea (which he wasn't going to touch, given that he was never sure what crazies like her would put in it) and the others volunteering to take the first watch. He found himself staring down at the poor bastards strapped to the crucifixes down below, thinking.

"Hey." Li said, sitting down with a dull thump next to him. "You okay?"

"I'm fine." Boone said, brushing off her concern.

"…Right." She didn't sound even slightly convinced. She handed him a cracked mug with some steaming hot drink in it. "Here, take this."

"What is it?" he asked, staring at it with the kind of suspicion most people had for tripwires.

"Just hot water with sugar and salt, or what's left of it. They haven't been resupplied in forever and the Legion taking their camp didn't help." Li said, yawning. She drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. "So, why are you still awake? It's my watch, like it's been for the past hour and a half, and one of the rangers is taking the next one."

He didn't say anything.

"That bad, huh?" Li sighed, looking down toward Nelson and, later, their fight. "After thinking it over, I probably gave Ranger Milo too much shit over this whole thing."

"Really," said Boone.

"Well, I started thinking about what I'd do if one of you got caught by the Legion and strung up like that and. Um. Kinda couldn't think." She shifted uncomfortably. "But I'd still try rescue, if there was a chance like there is here. It's not like this is Fortification Hill or anything."

_God dammit, don't talk about that!_ "So you think Milo should try anyway."

"At the very least, he should have admitted it was an option. He _shouldn't_ have come up to me first thing and said, 'by the way, I can't get any of my men to actually do anything, so could you please execute all of the hostages for me?'" Li spat, sending a withering glare back toward the Ranger half of the encampment.

"When do we move?" Boone asked, rather than thinking about anything—_anything_—to do with Carla and…_fuck_. That wasn't working either. "It'll be easier if we attack when they're asleep."

"In about an hour." Li said, sighing again. "I just need to get Arcade up and kick Ranger Milo about his plan and things. And maybe feed Rex."

"You deal with Milo." Boone suggested after a moment or two. "I'll get Gannon."

"Sounds like a plan." Li said, unfolding herself from whatever stupid contortionist position she'd put herself in (again). "See you in five."

Forty-five minutes later, the group began to set up. While Ranger Milo's boys hung back and tried to stay out of the way, Boone and Milo himself found positions on the nearby ridgelines to scythe down the inevitable Legionary charge. Arcade was Boone's spotter, armed with a plasma pistol and Li's slightly-cracked binoculars, while Veronica and Rex rushed in to make a commotion. Li just disappeared, though Boone was sure he'd seen her creep past the line of cabins before the shooting started.

And then the screaming started.

It stopped fairly soon after Boone put a bullet between the eyes of the first Legion recruit he saw. Veronica's haymaker quickly put down the next one, while Rex and a Legion mongrel started trying to tear each others' legs off. Rex had him beat there—while the other dog bit uselessly at Rex's metal back legs, Rex fixed his teeth in his opponent's thigh and bone crunched. Arcade fired over Boone's shoulder, making a Legion idiot's ribcage dissolve in a splash of plasma and choking death. Over the hill, Ranger Milo was firing almost indiscriminately and eating through ammo like no one's business. Below, two Legionaries were charging straight for one of the cabins, only to suddenly collapse in mid-stride with blood spurting from their throats after the door swung open. None of the others noticed, mostly because Veronica and Rex had finished with their targets and were charging back into the fray.

It all seemed to be going according to plan. Then, in the distance, Boone saw a Legion scout's head explode into a mass of green goo through the scope and suddenly realized that Arcade was actually down there in Nelson, among the much faster combatants. Boone swore silently and followed him.

And then, Li emerged from one of the cabins. Besides looking like she had been the epicenter of a bloodbath recently, she was carrying a machete that was at least half again as long as the normal kind, as well as a man's head in her other hand. She held up both the machete and the head, laughing like a Fiend with a fresh dose of Psycho, and lobbed the head at the last Legionary left.

He disemboweled himself, but didn't die immediately. Li brought the huge machete down on his head to finish the job.

"Okay, now for the boys." Li said, not explaining anything. Then again, maybe she didn't need to. "Let's see what Ranger Milo thinks of our rescue mission _now_."

Later, they found out that the man she had decapitated was Dead Sea. He'd been killed in front of his own men, who had been subsequently butchered as far as anyone could tell. No one would have believed Li was capable of it, least of all Boone, but her blade-work was evident everywhere they looked. Legionaries didn't use knives that small.

For a long moment, Arcade picked over the bodies and wondered what it all meant.


	12. Return to Gomorrah

These things seem to get more and more connected to each other.

At least after this we'll never have to visit the Omertas again.

* * *

><p><strong>Gomorrah (Again)<strong>

* * *

><p>For a moment, Meda didn't say anything, staring dumbly at the holotape.<p>

That was always a bad sign.

Eventually, Veronica stood up and checked to see if the hallway was still clear. Cass put her hand on Meda's shoulder and the courier got to her feet in a daze, pocketing the holotape. There really wasn't much to say, but there was going to be a lot to do in short order.

After a while, as they were wandering the halls of Gomorrah and trying to figure out where the stairs had disappeared to, Meda said, "He's not getting away with this."

"He won't." Cass agreed as they met Boone in the lobby. The resident sniper had elected to stay there, mostly because he wasn't allowed any further into the building without handing over his rifle. Which wasn't going to happen, ever.

"Who's not getting away with what and why?" Raul asked. The ghoul had elected not to leave the lobby because it had chairs and he had, in his words, very creaky knees. He could just about sneak up on a brahmin, if it was blind, deaf, and crippled. Not to mention dumber than a sack of bricks.

Oh, sure, he could have snuck both of the handguns the courier had given him past the guards, but where was the fun in that? Besides, she would have driven him crazy. At least Boone was quiet.

"Oh, um…well." Meda said, glancing at the receptionist. Then she leaned in and whispered, "The Omertas are working with the Legion."

"When do we start shooting?" Boone asked with a grim set to his features.

"It's not _just_ that, though." Meda said quickly.

"Not sure how much more he needs to kill them, Boss." Raul said dryly.

Meda stifled a groan and held out the holotape. "Look, I've already been asked by Cachino to figure out what the fuck is going on here. That isn't going to get done until both of the new guys—whatever drugged-out dumbass is upstairs and the man on this holotape—are sent packing. And that's not going to work if we just start shooting people!"

"Actually, the 'kill 'em all and let God sort it out' strategy works pretty well if you actually _do_ manage to kill them all." Cass put in. "Works best with Fiends, though."

"Not helping!" Meda hissed. She paused. "Okay, you know what? Who actually _wants_ to go on a shooting rampage?"

Boone inclined his head, though Cass looked like she wasn't really looking forward to it and Raul just wasn't interested. Veronica didn't have her power fist, either.

"Boone, you're outvoted." Meda said. "'In the interests of still letting you wreck their plans, though, I need to see someone really quick." Her smile bordered on malicious. "Be back soon."

She met them in the hallway near the elevator—they'd knocked the receptionist and the footman out and stashed them behind the counter to avoid making Boone hand over his guns—with what they would later agree was one of the most evil smiles they'd ever seen. She handed Veronica and Boone four old coffee cans full of brownish-red powder.

"What is this stuff, exactly?" Veronica asked, watching Boone jam the lid back on the tin. Dealing with the courier had only enhanced his natural paranoia.

"Thermite."

Veronica squeaked.

"So, while you two go and blow the weapons' cache to kingdom come," Meda went on mildly, pressing a map into their hands, along with some of the longest knives any of them had ever seen. No one asked how she managed to sneak them past the footman. "Cass and Raul will come with me so we can teach Clanden the error of his ways. See you in ten minutes, and feel free to take anything in there that you like. Our gun-runner said so."

After the explosion and the deaths of two extra Omerta thugs for the crime of getting in the way, there wasn't a while lot left of what was once the biggest stock of guns Veronica had seen since leaving the Brotherhood of Steel. Boone didn't really seem to care one way or another, still somewhat annoyed that this was all they could do.

That was when they heard muted shooting from upstairs.

Veronica was faster, and she'd already explored Gomorrah once. She led Boone up the stairs, and they met the other three walking down the hallway. Meda looked somewhat disappointed and relieved all at once, Cass looked almost smug, and Raul was completely unreadable. Then again, ghouls were _always_ hard to read.

"So, what happened?" Veronica had to know, noticing that Raul was stowing the two unique handguns back in his many pockets.

"I tried blackmailing Clanden." Meda said, still sounding slightly downcast. "It didn't really work."

Cass rolled her eyes. "We showed that dumb fucker the tape, and what does he do? Say he's gonna leave and keep raping and torturing somewhere else! And then Raul shot him in the face." She grinned. "Speaking of, Tejada, that was some real quick shooting. Did you use to steal brahmin or something?"

"That was a long time ago," the ghoul said dryly. "And no, I never stole anything. No point."

"Why's that?" Veronica asked. Most wastelanders were scavengers, after all.

"Mexico City didn't have enough people left for it to count as stealing."

Meda cut in then, stalling any further conversation that would probably dig too deep. "Okay, the last thing we've got to do is meet up with Cachino. And then maybe kill the top two Omertas."

"Fine by me." Boone said. He indicated the assault carbine he'd "liberated" from the Omerta stockpile. It was an expensive piece of crap compared to the equipment they'd scavenged and repaired while wandering with the courier, but it worked.

"Raul's got Lucky and Maria, I have a switchblade and…a 10mm." Meda murmured. "Cass, do you still have that combat knife?"

"Yep." Cass said. "And a silenced .22, though I'm pretty sure it was yours a couple of minutes ago. Unless one of you has a shotgun?"

"I've got boxing tape, but there's a sawed-off shotgun in my pack." Veronica said.

There was a brief scuffle wherein everyone switched weaponry until they had what best suited them, and then it was time to meet Cachino.

Said balding man had apparently come to the conclusion that, yes, Big Sal and Nero were in need of a skull-ventilating session. It was almost too easy, considering that the two idiots had put Cachino in charge of the investigation into the destruction of the weapon stockpile and then allowed him to bring not just Meda, but also all of her companions into the room.

Raul and Cass later agreed that they were asking for it, as the courier led their entire motley band into the wastes, including Arcade (who had spent the previous few hours sleeping), Lily (who had been knitting with railroad spikes), Rex, and ED-E (who had been antagonizing each other).

Boone adjusted his sunglasses and kept his eyes on the horizon.

Bitter Springs was only twenty miles away.


	13. Bitter Springs

Kinda late, but a monster of an update. I have a funny feeling most of the Companions' quests will end up like this...

Not much in the way of funny, since it's Boone. And his backstory sucks.

* * *

><p><strong>Bitter Springs<strong>

* * *

><p>"Bitter Springs still needs a lot of help." the courier said after a while, looking down from Coyote Tail Ridge with a thoughtful expression in the morning light. Cass and ED-E were nearby, with the former caravan driver picking over the terrain with a practiced eye. ED-E was just floating around, on watch for the entire valley.<p>

"This whole place is a deathtrap." Cass remarked, pointing at the narrow gap in the hills where everything squeezed together like a bottleneck. "No secure escape routes, not a damn thing to drink other than the lake water—which has _lakelurks_—too many refugees, and at least two slopes wide open to Legion attacks."

"I think they know that." Li said quietly, still surveying the landscape.

"Where'd Boone disappear to, anyway?" Cass wondered aloud, whacking the dust from her pants.

"He said he wanted to be alone for a while." Li said, frowning slightly. Then she shrugged and clapped her hands together. "Come on, the others will want to know if we got that sniper."

"Still can't believe there was a Great Khan just hanging around here." Cass muttered as they slid down the rear edge of the hill, toward the graves of the Great Khan noncombatants that had been butchered in the Massacre.

"I can." Li said. "It's a place that has a lot of bad memories. Sometimes you can't get away, even when you're not there."

Cass blinked, glancing back at the courier, who was still being oddly quiet and thoughtful. "Kinda philosophical for you, Li."

"Explains Boone pretty well for being philosophy." Li replied. "Come on, I bet they still need help."

"With Gannon taking up space in the medical tent, Veronica beating lakelurks to death, and Boone doing God-only-knows-what?" Cass sighed. "All right, let's go."

It was the first time all of them had been together on a single assignment. It wasn't really an _assignment_, actually, since Li barely ever asked them to do anything other than fight, but everyone working together to make sure an NCR refugee camp didn't destroy itself? That was new.

Lily was asleep, but only because she'd been one of the four guards for the camp. And she had been the only one to stay awake the whole night through, with ED-E bobbing up and down beside her head as a metallic sentry, and the biggest super sledge anyone could find in her right hand. A few of the children in the camp had decided that she was the most incredible person in the world, and even now were snoozing fitfully all around her cot.

Well, really, she was just taking up space in their tent. And after Li had convinced them that pretty much nothing was going to wake her up anyway, the kids had swarmed.

It was pretty scary, actually.

Arcade spent all of his time working with the camp's only medic, who was probably at least ten years younger and less than half as experienced. The poor man had probably never gotten the kind of training the Followers offered to all of their members, which left him somewhat lost when it came to the refugee kids. Not to mention the fucked-up-in-the-head veterans. Arcade helped, and once sent Li off in search of a book on child psychology when his expertise failed him. They were getting better.

Unlike with Camp Guardian, where lakelurks had been popping up from hidden cave systems and killing everyone (among a few dozen other problems), most of Bitter Springs' threats were clearly defined. The Legion was in one direction, the lakeshore in another, the mountains…except for the cazador, Legionary, and lakelurk problem, it was a nice enough place. Veronica was sorting most of those problems out, anyway. With grenades.

Cass snorted to herself. Who was she kidding? Without their help, this entire chunk of NCR territory was _fucked_.

Raul wasn't as good with long guns as she and Boone were, and the refugees didn't like ghouls much. Sad, but true. But Tejada was getting used to people again after being stuck with that crazy nightkin for way too long, so maybe being around jumpy people wasn't that bad of an idea. And the old ghoul still found it hilarious whenever someone (usually Cass) brought up how he'd been greeted by Ambassador Crocker's bodyguard—not because the guy was a racist jackass, of course, but because of the colorful threats the little courier had gleefully invented for Tejada's defense. Tejada might not have really liked any of them, but at least Li was good for laughs and snide comments.

As for Li herself…_they'd_ been in the area for a week. _Li_ had actually been in Bitter Springs for all of two hours before taking off again. At night.

She'd taken Cass with her, and Rex, and they'd run errands that every ranger outpost seemed too damn incompetent to do. Li knew explosives—she could teach the idiots at Camp Golf how not to get killed. Cass, likewise, knew guns and how to make sure your friends didn't have to pick bits of lead out of their limbs after one practice session. Rex was only there because ED-E couldn't be spared from sentry duty at Bitter Springs and they needed _someone_ to be their lookout while on the road. Rex may not have been an all-seeing eyebot, but he was a good cyberdog.

They gathered ammo from some camps, dogtags for others, and ran around the Mojave when it seemed like the ranger stations were all getting false information and it was leading to more deaths to figure out what the fuck was going on. The rumor of intelligent deathclaws was particularly interesting.

Cass had been a bit surprised to find that Chief Hanlon was responsible for all of it, but not as surprised as she was that Li had left the guy mostly alone. She'd thought—hell, Hanlon had thought—that Li was a loyal NCR citizen, with the same tolerance for traitors. But the courier had only looked sad for a moment before telling the man that she had no intention of exposing him. And they'd left after extracting a promise that the man wouldn't ever lie in such a way again.

Cass realized later that Li was trying to balance two parts of her nature—the loyal NCR citizen, who had family to look after and protect in case their baby sister ever crossed the army, and the decent-if-weird woman who was trying to keep more innocent people from dying, regardless of affiliation. She looked after Freeside in her goofball way, and had freed Primm and Goodsprings from their tormentors. But she didn't necessarily want the NCR to just roll on in. Not the way it was.

Cass also later decided that she needed a drink.

Bitter Springs would get its second chance. When Li decided to make something happen, it would work eventually. It was that future they were waiting on.

* * *

><p>The evening breeze was frigid, coming off the lake and blasting right up the natural ramp that led into the camp. High deserts weren't hospitable at the best of times, what with the air sucking the moisture right out of a man's mouth and the sun beating down on everyone like they were living in a gigantic oven. But nights were cooler, and dangerous, mostly because humans couldn't see in the dark while a whole lot of other things didn't have that problem.<p>

Neither did ED-E, who watched over the camp from the ridge above Gilles's tent in case something went wrong. Something always did.

Even after spending a week in Bitter Springs, a few months on the road with him, and helping him find out who had betrayed his wife to the Legion, Boone still hadn't expected Li to actually agree to camp on Coyote Tail Ridge. But Li had apparently seen that it was important to him, and that was the end of that.

Spending time with Li meant talking about old pain, though, and that was hard.

"All this time, and you never asked." Boone said, shaking his head in disbelief.

Li shrugged, sitting on the bare rock of the ridge without any sign of minding the cold. "It was your business. But I'm asking now. What happened to your wife after the Legion took her?"

Boone sat down next to her, his rifle across his knees. He digs his heels into the stone, making sure he won't go rolling down the ridge to his death or something else just as stupid. He put his rifle to the side, because otherwise he'd worry about what he'd do with it. He had to dig up an ugly memory.

He sighed and folded his arms. "She…I tracked her down. Southeast, near the river. They were selling her. Saw it through my scope."

Li looked like she wanted to interrupt, but thought better of it.

"Whole place was swarming with Legion. Hundreds of them." Li winced, but Boone wasn't going to stop. Not now. "Bidding on things no man has a right to.

"I only had my rifle with me. Just me, against all of them, so…" His throat was trying to close, but he'd come this far, right? "I took the shot."

"Oh, Boone…" Li whispered, but she didn't try to pat him on the shoulder or anything. _Thank God_. The naked pity was almost more than he could stand. She took a deep breath. "It was better for her to die there than live as a Legion slave."

"Yeah." Boone agreed distantly. "What they do to women…it's worse than death. There's no choice in what I did." But…still. There was always that feeling that he could have—no, _should_ have done more. "It was more like…being forced to watch something you can't stop."

Li nodded, looking out over Coyote Tail Ridge and below.

"All this was ever going to play out one way. It still is. I don't have any say. All I can do is wait for it to be done with me." Boone muttered, likewise looking away.

But Li broke into his thoughts with a sharp, "Wait. You make it sound like your wife's death was inevitable." From her tone, she disagreed. A lot.

"It was gonna be something," he insisted, though without much heat. "If I'd never met Carla, it would've been something else. I should've never gotten close to her." Admitting it always felt like a knife to the gut. But he _knew_ it was true. It wouldn't hurt so much otherwise. "I've got bad things coming to me. You'd better keep your distance, too."

"I won't." Li replied quietly. She turned to face him, and he could see the raised, still-healing gashes in her face and neck from her run-in with the Boomers. She'd already had her warning. Even if it had been with Gannon and Nellis rather than with him and the Legion. "Why do you say you've got bad things coming, anyway?"

"Because fair is fair." Boone replied. _He's_ fucked, he knew that, but he's not going to drag anyone else down with him if he can avoid it.

"I don't understand," she said, but there was an undertone in her voice that implied what she actually wanted to say was more along the lines of, "Start talking, you jerk."

_No._ "Better that you don't," he said flatly.

But she let it go anyway, rubbing absentmindedly at her scars with the back of her right hand. "Can you tell me about her?"

_Carla_. Still hurt, but not as much as the other memory. "I met Carla while I was at the Strip on leave. She said I looked lost." He looked down at Bitter Springs, to where Rex was leading an exhausted Gannon toward one of the tents. "She talked a lot. Suited me fine—I never know what to say."

Li gave him a look that said she agreed.

"And listening to her, it could…make you forget." He moved on so he didn't have to dwell on _what_ he'd tried to forget. Except they were at Bitter Springs, and there was no getting away from it. He mentally kicked himself for asking Li to camp out on Coyote Tail Ridge. If anything was going to trigger the memories, it was that. "She stuck out, pretty much everywhere we went. Like she was from a different time. A better time. I never met anyone like her."

Li seemed to struggle for words for a moment, picking at her stitches because she couldn't come up with anything that made sense to say. Then, "That's why you didn't want to talk at Nelson, right?"

_Nelson—wait, how did she…ah, fuck. Doesn't matter now._ "Yeah."

"Then I'm glad we got to stop history from repeating." Li remarked. "And the next time someone asks you to do that, I'm breaking his fucking nose."

"Won't change if it needs to be done." Boone pointed out. It was one of the jobs First Recon always had. Sometimes there wasn't anything to do. Even if it hurt.

Li shrugged. "Still won't change what _I'm_ gonna do."

"Even if it's stupid?"

"Even if it's stupid."

Silence reigned for a time.

"Okay, your turn." Li said.

"What?"

"…Never mind."

Silence reigned for a while longer, since she'd apparently run out of things to say and he wasn't good at filling awkward silences anyway. Never wanted to.

"I talked to Manny."

_What?_ Boone tensed. She hadn't brought up that name even _once_ in his presence before, so why now? "When and why?"

Li replied, "I showed up in Novac while he was on duty. So after I talked to everyone who was awake—you weren't—I went up to bug him. And he didn't tell me anything about the Khans I was chasing until I did a couple of favors for him."

"And?" Boone wondered what the point of it was, since she'd never talked about the things she did in Novac before, either.

"And he had me go out to REPCONN to figure out why there was a ghoul problem." Li explained. "I managed to get everything sorted out."

Boone remembered having to shoot more ghouls than usual, at least in the weeks up until the courier showed up. And then they suddenly stopped coming. He'd never asked why.

"But…" He'd known there was one coming. Li seemed to think over what to say for a while. "But Manny told me that he'd faked sick to get out of heading to confront the Khans in Bitter Springs, while you two were both enlisted. He knew too many people on both sides. I got pretty much the same story from Bitter-Root at McCarran when I asked how he enlisted—but all he said was that the Khans deserved it. But…what _happened_?"

"The NCR won." Boone said flatly.

Li scowled at him. "Boone, I'm NCR too. I know that. But _civilians_ don't get told why every Great Khan from here to Red Rock Canyon calls you a quote-unquote 'fucking murderer.'"

"There was a…miscommunication." Boone said after a while, struggling to find the right words.

"…Must've been one hell of a miscommunication." Li replied.

Boone glanced away. "Yeah, well. That's how they wrote it up in the report. We did what we were there to do. Lot of people got killed. That's war." He paused. "Maybe looking back you'd do things different, but that's not how it works. In the field, you hesitate, you or someone you care about will die. They teach you that from day one."

Li nodded. So she understood, partly. Good. Then she said, "Sounds like you have some regrets."

"You don't come out of a tour of duty without regrets. It's best just not to think about it." Boone said.

"Do you think about this place a lot?" Li asked, her tone carefully neutral.

_Goddamn it._ "Yeah. Always. Even when I sleep." The nightmares proved as much. She'd probably noticed.

"…I noticed that you didn't really seem like you wanted to come here." Li said after a pause. This conversation was just full of hesitant stops and starts. "Is it because of this place—what happened here—that makes you think you've got bad things coming?"

Boone sighed. "Life has a way of punishing you for the mistakes you make. Big enough mistake, punishment can take a while. Mine's not over."

"…Maybe you can make up for your mistakes." Li suggested.

"A murderer who does good deeds in the dark is still a murderer." Boone replied bluntly. "And he'll still get his judgment. I left the NCR when my tour was up. Had enough of war. Decided I was gonna start over.

"None of it made a difference in the end."

Li said nothing for a moment. Then, "How do you know your punishment isn't over?"

_Isn't it obvious?_ "Because I'm still alive."

Li went silent. Then she stood up, after a minute or two, and climbed down the ridge. Boone sat and watched as she walked down to the camp, past Gilles's tent entirely. Instead, Li strode over to where Lily had been sleeping all day and rouse the nightkin.

Within ten minutes, Lily was patrolling the area with Rex at her side. Then Li emerged from the tent, carrying her pack and blankets and something long and made of metal. She climbed back up the slope and dropped everything in a heap except for the rifle, her face set in a neutral expression that was probably forced, and shoved the gun into his hands.

"…What's this?" Boone asked as she began to spread the bedding out on the ridge. Boone couldn't see the gun very well in the half-moon light, but he could tell that it was designed for .50 caliber rounds. He looked it over again. "An anti-materiel rifle. What for?" _Bribery?_

Li ignored that, instead sitting down on one of the blankets and taking out her binoculars and a bottle of Catseye. She seemed to be waiting for something—probably her watch shift—but she looked at him and asked instead, "What's so special about this ridge?"

…She was really good at needling things out of people. _Gannon must hate her._ "Canyon 37. That's what the NCR calls the pass down there."

Li looked.

"It was the Khan's only escape, so we set up here to guard it while the main force attacked from the front." Boone continued. "Standing orders were to shoot on sight."

"What happened?" she asked.

"Main force got spotted too soon. We heard shooting. Then Khans started coming through Canyon 37 in bunches." Boone looked down on the deathtrap below. "It was all wrong, though. Women, kids, elderly. Wounded started coming through, too.

"We radioed to confirm our orders, but command didn't get what we were seeing. They told us to shoot till we were out of ammo. So that's what we did."

He could see her struggling. She was an idealist, like Gannon, but it wasn't black and white. Li would've found a way around it—she _liked_ the Khans, once the whole thing with Benny was sorted out—but she hadn't been there. She would've disobeyed orders. She probably would've gone up to Gilles before her demotion and started a fight and gotten shot over it. "…You did what you had to do as a soldier," she said at last, with difficulty.

"Yeah, well." Boone muttered, "I'm not a soldier anymore. Those rules don't seem like much of an excuse now." He resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose to stave off the impending headache. "Anyway…I don't know why we're here. Thought maybe it'd help make me see things better." He paused. "I'd like to stay here for the night. Think some things over."

"Yeah, I figured." Li said mildly. She shrugged. "No problem."

"All right." Boone replied, not at all surprised that she'd agreed. "We won't stay for long."

It turned out that he was right, but not in the way he expected. He woke in the middle of the night, to the sound of both ED-E's sharp computerized beeps and Rex's furious barking. Li rolled over, drowsy still, by the time Boone had picked up the rifle she'd given him and was looking through the scope.

_Oh, hell._ "Something's wrong. Got a group coming our way," he bit out when Li finally sat up and tapped his shoulder to ask what he was worried about. "Looks like a Legion raiding party. It's big."

Li snapped to attention, her expression going from drowsy to alert and angry in about half a second.

"Might be too big." Boone added reluctantly. "Even for us. If you want out, I won't blame you. But I'm going to stay. See if I can hold them off."

Li's expression told him that she thought he was an idiot even before she said, "You don't sound surprised."

"To tell the truth…I think this is exactly what I've been waiting for." Boone muttered.

Li glared at him again and looked toward the camp. Then she pulled tapped something on her Pip-Boy and suddenly ED-E's electronic squalling got about four times louder. Rex howled. Everyone in the camp started moving. "As far as the Legion goes," Li said coolly, "it just saves us the trouble of finding them. Let's go."

They ran—they were the only two who were far enough out of Bitter Springs that, if they wanted, they could have slipped away unnoticed. But Boone wasn't going to tolerate anything remotely ill-tempered within fifty miles if he could help it, and that went double for the Legionaries that plagued the Mojave. Li just hated them.

Little green globs of energy were already flying across the camp when they arrived—Gannon was awake and in a fairly bad mood, given the dissolved bits of two Legionaries they managed to find. He wasn't hurt, just a little surprised, and didn't need any support when Li asked. There was an NCR trooper who was picking up the slack just fine. And if he didn't, there was the distinct crack of Tejada's mismatched pistols from nearby.

Rex tore across the camp, snarling, and was backed up by ED-E as the eyebot got its zapper online and blasted in the next enemy's direction. He hit a Legion mongrel, fixing his teeth along its lower jaw, and tore. ED-E only arrived in time for the finishing blow, but he managed to vaporize the beast's rear legs. Then they turned as one and charged after the rest of the Legion dogs, blasting and biting and starting their own non-humanoid reign of terror.

Veronica appeared, but only in a brief blur of motion. By then, she'd broken her enemy's spine with her hydraulic fist and leapt in pursuit of the one with a hunting rifle, who was looking in the wrong direction entirely. He was going to get his head punched clean off.

Cass got there first, blowing his head off with a well-timed slug from her caravan-issue shotgun. She and Veronica paired off and dashed as one toward the uppermost part of the camp, where Gilles was shouting for reinforcements.

Then the reason for the Legionary's inattention became clear—Lily appeared out of nowhere as her Stealth Boy failed, wielding a bumper sword and zooming across the battlefield at a speed that would make a cazador jealous. She targeted the next Legionary she saw, and he screamed in terror.

Li ran ahead, ducking between buildings and rubble, and slammed into a Legionary with all the force she could muster. The refugee he'd been chasing ducked behind an ancient trailer, and by then Li had already brutally hacked all the way through the man's neck. After she wiped some of the blood off on the dead man's armor, Boone recognized the machete as the one she'd gotten off Dead Sea back in Nelson.

As for Boone, he had to retreat briefly. The anti-materiel rifle would cut straight through their armor, sure, but it had some of the worst recoil he'd ever had to deal with. Halfway up the hill, he turned around as ED-E and Rex came back from their skirmish with the Legion dogs. Rex kept going, latching onto the Legionary trying to shoot through Gannon's head. ED-E hovered to the left of Boone's shoulder and kept firing his laser.

Boone took a deep breath and looked through the scope.

Out of the twenty or so Legionaries who'd started the fight, there were maybe five left. They were all confused except for the dumb fuck with the flag sticking out of the back of his armor—and he was the one that Boone aimed for. He breathed out and the man's head exploded into bloody chunks. Then Lily turned her attention to them and they scattered. Boone picked the rest of them off as they ran.

Except…that didn't seem like it was quite right. It was over too soon.

"We've got more coming in from the canyon!" Li shouted, waving an arm to get his attention.

"Yeah, I see 'em," Cass replied, startlingly close—of course, she and Veronica had just cleared out everything above him on the hillside. She stood a couple of feet away, trying to aim down the sights of her shotgun but knowing it was pointless.

Li whistled and Rex came charging up, jaws red. "Rex, you're with me. Boone, take ED-E to the ridge! Lily, Veronica, down the middle! Cass will back you up."

"Got it!" Cass replied.

"Nice day for a trip to the meatgrinder, isn't it?" Veronica quipped, looking all too eager for a second round.

"Don't worry about a thing, pumpkin." Lily said with a nightkin's typical cheerful bloodthirstiness.

"Yeah, well, Arcade and Raul can handle the camp." Li replied with a dismissive wave. "Let's go."

There were only about five more Legionaries, but also five dogs. They shouted something about retribution and glory in the name of Caesar, but by then Boone already had the first one in his sights.

They lasted maybe thirty seconds after the shooting started.

Boone sat back on a nearby rock after it was over, shaking his head as the rest of the group picked over the bodies for anything useful. The courier was looking for something to repair her machete with, and as such had gathered up all the edged weapons in the area and was looking through them for a suitable source of parts.

Then she sat down next to Boone's rock and nudged him. "Well?"

"We made it through after all. Not sure what to make of that." He looked down at her. "What do you want me to say?"

Li shrugged. "I wasn't about let you die. So thanks, maybe?"

Boone looked away. "I don't mean disrespect or anything. It's a hell of a thing to have someone willing to watch my back like that—helps that you've talked everyone into helping." Really, six human-ish allies, a few troopers, Gilles (who didn't really count), and the robot and the dog versus a Legion patrol that probably hadn't expected any of them. If they'd actually been ambushed, though… "But I've come to believe that there are some things nobody can stop. I thought for sure that's what we'd finally come up against today."

Li blinked, as though she couldn't quite believe what she was hearing.

It's difficult to talk, but the courier was a good listener sometimes. "It would have made sense for things to end here. But now…I'm still waiting."

Li frowned. "No one's judging you here. Sometimes things just…happen."

"If that's the way it is, there's not a lot of comfort in knowing it." Boone replied bluntly. He sighed, lifting his sunglasses to rub his eyes. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do about all this."

"Well…" Li began slowly, "You can't take back what you've done. The past is the past. But your regrets can put you on a better path."

That was…a way of looking at things. _Huh._ "I guess they brought us here, in a way." Boone said. "One less Legion raiding party running loose now. Never a bad thing, you can take my word for that."

"Exactly." Li said, finally working the handle of the newly recovered machete loose.

Boone looked down at her and said quietly, "Still feels like I'm living on borrowed time. But I don't see any reason not to take a lot more of those sons of bitches with me." _Gonna have to admit it sooner or later…_ "You got a point. There's still some things I can do before all this is over."

"…Not exactly what I meant, but okay." Li said. There was a popping sound as she forced the new handle onto the Liberator. "Well, only thing left to do is clean up after ourselves."

"Oh, yes, no need to be unsanitary houseguests on top of saving their entire camp from being overrun." Gannon said sarcastically. "The breach in etiquette would be _appalling_."

"Grandma's got this handled, pumpkin!" Lily said brightly, dragging four of the bodies off at once. "Don't worry about a thing."

Li made a face. "Maybe we should just feed them to the lakelurks…"


	14. The Strip

This is sort of an interlude until the next big chapter, which concerns the White Glove Society.

On the other hand, headshots!

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><p><strong>The Strip<strong>

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><p>Being accosted by a Legion spy while on the way to the Ultra-Luxe was not exactly what Veronica had in mind for the morning, but if they were on their way to shut down a bunch of maybe-cannibals, she supposed that the weirdness quota for the day hadn't been met yet. So the world clearly had to make up for it.<p>

Meda didn't seem to know what to make of the man in the suit at first, looking down at her stolen mercenary outfit awkwardly for a second or two, before shrugging to herself and finally deigning to listen.

"The eyes of the mighty Caesar are upon you. He admires your accomplishments, and bestows upon you the exceptional gift of his Mark." The Frumentarius crossed his arms. "Your crimes against the Legion, including the death of the fearless Vulpes Inculta, are hereby forgiven. Caesar will not extend this mercy again."

Meda's expression was carefully blank, though she seemed to be fiddling with something in her pocket. Veronica was debating whether or not to bite down on her left fist to keep from laughing. This guy was _so_ lucky Boone and Arcade and Cass were still in the Lucky 38, trying to find their weapons for the latest excursion.

The man went on, "My lord requires your presence at his camp, at Fortification Hill. His Mark will guarantee your safe-conduct throughout our lands."

After a while, the courier nodded and said, "Tell Caesar I accept his invitation."

Boone would have dropped dead of apoplexy.

Alerio seemed satisfied. "Seek Caesar by way of Cottonwood Cove. There will be a boatman waiting for your arrival."

Veronica thought, _Boone's head is going to **explode** when he hears this, never mind the aneurysm._

Meda smiled. "I see… By the way, Alerio, Caesar says he forgives me about the whole killing Vulpes thing, right?"

"Yes." Alerio replied, one eyebrow raised.

"I have to ask," Meda began slowly, having finally retrieved a lump of red cloth from her pocket. "What in hell made you think that was a one-time thing?" With a flick of her wrist, she snapped the fabric open to reveal a First Recon beret and put it on her head.

A quarter of a second later, Alerio's head exploded when Boone's new rifle gave a sharp crack.

Meda grinned, even as the Securitrons started to swarm over the apparent homicide victim. "Well, turns out that the old signal still works."

When Veronica asked later, Boone said that there was no way he was forgetting a signal like that, even if he never explained why.

Veronica shrugged, chalking it up as yet another Boone-ism, and they all strode into the Ultra-Luxe for a rather strange night.


	15. Ultra Luxe

"Livin' La Vida Loca" belongs to Ricky Martin, his estate, and anyone who happens to also own the rights to the audio.

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><p><strong>Ultra-Luxe<strong>

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><p>The White Glove Society, as it turned out, were substantially creepier than anything they'd encountered so far. Oh, sure, the Fiends were drugged-out raiders without the survival instinct evolution gave a gecko, the Khans apparently had some kind of mental block that kept them from realizing that the odds were not in their favor, Vault 22 was the kind of thing Meda would probably go back to Camp McCarran to stab someone over, Black Mountain was just goddamn weird, and Camp Searchlight was overrun with ghouls, but the White Glove Society…it was special. In a bad way.<p>

Being perfectly honest, none of them had ever been inside the Ultra-Luxe before. Actually, before Meda showed up with her penchant for picking locks and finding caps, none of them had been on the Strip before, either. It was a side effect of being broke most of the time.

Meda apparently considered this a reason to investigate everything, and all she needed was an excuse to snoop around.

Upon finding Gunderson sitting at the bar and drinking his way through half the casino's stock of hard liquor, she found that excuse.

So, while Boone and Cass alternated who was losing whiskey money at the blackjack tables, and Arcade stood nearby to mock them both, Meda took Veronica, ED-E, and Rex on her hunt for information.

Eventually, it led them to a nice, quiet room on the second floor of the Ultra-Luxe that had unfortunately been the site of a fight. Tables and chairs were overturned, blood covered the walls, carpet, and sheets, and there was a poor dead detective lying in the middle of the floor. And just when Veronica was about to suggest that they tell Marjorie that yet another guest had been murdered, two White Gloves showed up with canes and tried to kill them.

"You know," Veronica said, after cracking every knuckle and her wrists loudly enough to make Rex yelp, "somehow I thought we'd be getting a vacation."

Meda looked up from the bodies of the two White Gloves and shrugged. "You're with me. I don't think I can go anywhere without someone wanting something from me." She held up one of the canes. "Want one?"

"Hah! No, I think I'm better off just punching." This, of course, coming from the woman who'd given the first White Glove a haymaker to the face within seconds of realizing there was a fight at all. Meda had only had the time to stab the second in the arm before ED-E and Rex flash-fried/bit the hell out of him.

Meda shook her head and made her way back over to the dead detective. "Okay, let's see what he's got on him…"

A minute later, "A-hah!"

"What now?" Veronica asked, having been occupied hiding the other two bodies in the bathroom. The maid was going to get a shock in the morning.

"He's got a notebook." Meda said, flipping through the pages. "Yes!"

Veronica peeked over the courier's shoulder. "How many informants do you think he's got?"

"Probably just one," she said, stowing the notebook away in one of her many jacket pockets. "Couldn't keep a secret otherwise. So, are you coming along?"

"Why not?" Veronica said, combining a shrug and a bright grin. "Let's go cause trouble, since at least then we know we're doing it on purpose."

"…Point taken. Let's go." The courier led the way.

Why the hell the informant wanted to meet in the bathhouse, though, neither woman knew until they got there. It was pretty hard to hear anything distinct in the entire building, since the water alternately amplified and dulled sound. Just for science's sake, Meda and Veronica tried shouting at each other from opposite ends of the room, and, besides spooking guests, it made their voices sound oddly distorted.

"Well, we apparently have to be here until four." Meda muttered, scratching her head. "We got stopped by the doorman at what, three-ish?"

"A little later, I think." Veronica replied. "And anyway, why are you asking me? You're the one with the Pip-Boy."

"Just making sure." Meda said mildly. Then her entire demeanor shifted without warning. "Wait, I think that's him."

As though on cue, a man in a suit—a White Glove, but without the mask—approached the corner of the bathhouse and entered the steam room. Meda and Veronica, as well as ED-E and Rex, followed him in.

The man, as it turned out, was named Chauncey. And he knew that Mortimer was kidnapping people. He as a nice enough guy, though younger than Meda or Veronica, and he didn't like the way the White Glove Society was heading, what with the kidnapping and cannibalism. He also gave them a few options on how to screw over Mortimer's plans entirely and possibly expose him.

"So, we could drug the wine and drag Gunderson's kid out the front door, or we could expose Mortimer as a cannibal to the rest of the White Gloves and get him kicked out…" Meda's smirk was downright evil as she thought it over. Then her expression became much calmer and more genuinely happy. "Thanks, Chauncey. I'll do what I can."

Then another man—a White Glove assassin, as it turned out later—rushed into the steam room and shot Chauncey dead.

The assassin lasted about fifteen seconds after that, because Meda had slipped Veronica two sets of brass knuckles on the way to the bathhouse. And besides, ED-E was floating behind his right shoulder when the shot went off.

"…Well, fuck." Meda muttered, after checking Chauncey's neck for a pulse, just to be safe. Nothing. And as for the assassin, Veronica was tracking the man's ashes all over the place. ED-E could be worryingly thorough.

A while later, after they'd respectfully laid Chauncey to rest in the steam room (which was the best they could do without rousing suspicion), Veronica and the courier made their way back to the casino floor. Boone had apparently doubled his NCR pension and now Cass was out of whiskey money entirely, while Arcade had vanished somewhere.

"…If I somehow find out that Mortimer got Arcade," Meda said in a low tone as the other two came back from cashing their chips in, "I'm stabbing him to death with a _screwdriver_."

Boone wordlessly pointed over her shoulder, to where Arcade had been standing for the previous ten seconds.

Still, the Followers doctor looked a little mollified, as opposed to his usual endless stream of sarcasm. In the face of Meda's irritation, he just said, "Now, now, don't go planning horrible revenge for my death when I haven't stopped breathing yet. Though it is a touching thought, in a disturbingly _Boone_ kind of way."

The sniper, of course, ignored him. "Do we have a plan?"

Meda rolled her eyes at Arcade's quip before returning to the topic at hand. "It's probably not going to involve as much shooting as Gomorrah did. Depending on what Marjorie says and how I time it, we might get away without having to shoot anyone at all. Except maybe Mortimer."

"I bet Boone's disappointed _now_." Cass remarked, amused. Well, at least she wasn't still sore about losing her whiskey money.

"Enough sniping at the sniper." Meda said, mouth twitching. "Anyway, I need to talk to Marjorie so I can get access to the members-only part of the casino. And if that fails, I'll need to scam Mortimer."

"We'll be waiting." Cass said. "Somehow, I don't think you'll be able to get all of us in, and I figure you're going to take Veronica if you can, right?"

"If I can't get anyone else in, yeah, I'm taking Veronica to hell with me," she replied. "She can punch people to death. And besides, I forgot that Raul still has Lucky and Maria."

"Aw, I didn't know you cared." Veronica quipped.

"Enough jokes. Hang on a bit and I'll see if I can get in the peaceful way." The courier walked away, off to Marjorie's desk.

Veronica frowned and said. "Does it seem like we get dragged into this kind of thing _way_ too often? Not that I'm complaining, though."

Arcade shrugged. "Unfortunately, I think we passed the point of no return a very long time ago. Now it's a matter of keeping up."

"_Someone_ needs to keep Li from running off and getting killed by Fiends. Might as well be us." Cass put in after a moment or two. "And besides, she's pretty fun to hassle."

They all turned to look at Boone.

"What?" he asked after a moment or two. "She's okay, the caps are good, and she hates the Legion."

…Okay, Veronica sort of figured she should have expected something like that out of him. Only…not quite. But Boone had never been one to talk about personal problems anyway.

Then Meda appeared again, carrying a package under her arm. "Well, I got in. Now I just need to get this 'attire' on so I can go fuck up Mortimer's life." She held up a paper-wrapped package and walked over to the women's restroom. "Excuse me."

After a couple of minutes, they heard a very loud, "Ah, fuck. Cass, could you get in here for a sec? The zipper's stuck!"

Cass went in, grumbling a bit because honestly, the courier could be thwarted by the _weirdest_ things. Then, "You're too short for this thing."

"I _know_. Just help me with the holsters."

"…How the fuck did you manage to get one of _these_ past security?"

"Practice."

"You two can argue about your unresolved sexual tension _after_ we're done here!" Veronica said loudly.

There was a thump and the courier started cackling. Then both of them emerged from the bathroom and Veronica…well, later Arcade would describe it as the kind of ear-splitting cry of delight most women reserved for babies. And puppies. Boone would just complain of a headache instead.

"Are you sure?" Veronica squeaked.

"Completely." Meda replied, looking embarrassed. "As soon as this thing's over, I'll take the safety pins out and you can keep this dress."

"Yay!"

As it turned out, getting into the members-only section of the Ultra-Luxe was as simple as having Meda lie to the lone sentry—something about either plumbing or Mortimer sending her, it was hard to tell—and heading down the stairs. The courier led the way, stomping away since she still had her boots on (muttering something about how stilettos were evil incarnate), and they ended up in the hallway outside of the kitchens in about five minutes. Granted, Boone and Cass were hanging further back with Stealth Boys so they could be lookouts, but Veronica didn't mind being closer. Arcade was in one of the nearby rooms, on standby in case the Gunderson kid needed medical attention. Rex and ED-E waited back in the public sections of the casino.

And from there, they got to hear Meda walk in and confront Philippe. Veronica watched.

"Why are you standing still? Do you think the world waits for you while you stand there drooling? Get back out there and get back to work!" Philippe had a high, wheedling voice that Veronica found irritating, but Meda didn't seem to care about that.

"I think you may have me confused with someone else," she said coolly, hands on hips.

Philippe raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Oh really? So despite your dirty face and vacant expression and your complete lack of human dignity, you're telling me you're not a server?"

And that was when Meda pulled out the big guns—also known as her more ridiculous bullshitting skills. "Your predisposition towards anger suggests unresolved issues in your past."

"What kind of harebrained fucking psychobabble bullshit is that?" Philippe demanded. "I yell at people because I like yelling at people and because they fucking deserve it. Not because Mumsy and Daddy-kins didn't hug me enough."

Meda was completely unmoved. "You may be projecting. Tell me more about your parents."

"Oh, I see how it is." Philippe had a weird way of getting angry and getting louder without really doing anything. "You think that because my father walked out on us when I was five, now I have to yell at people."

Meda didn't say anything.

Philippe went on, "Or because my mother was a deranged chem fiend who regularly brought strange men home who told me to call them uncle."

Veronica was starting to feel sorry for the guy.

"Or because my sisters would lock me in a shipping crate when they didn't want me around… and my brother… God, I'd forgotten about that. How could they do that to me?" Philippe trailed off for a moment. "I…I can't stay here. I need to be alone."

"What about the banquet?" Meda asked mildly.

"Forget about the fucking banquet." Philippe snapped. When he spoke again, it was almost too fast to understand. "You know what? You can do it. You be the star chef. Take my recipes." His voice lowered a little. "It won't fill the hole, though. Just remember that. You'll always feel empty."

And then he walked out, right past Veronica.

Meda stood there in the middle of the kitchen for a long moment. Then, "_Fuck_, now I feel bad."

"We can help him out later." Veronica said. "So, the fake human flesh stuff—how do you make it?"

"I…hold on. Let me get the burner started," the courier muttered. And then they got to work.

It turned out that the human flesh substitute was brahmin, like damn near everything else when you got down to it, and Meda called the waiter to take it up to the hungry White Gloves while Veronica hid in the corner and tried to figure out the password for the freezer's lock system. After he was gone, they opened the door.

"My daddy's gonna kill all you bastards once he finds out what you done to me." That was the first thing out of Ted Gunderson's mouth.

"_Calm down_." Meda said sharply. "We're here to rescue you."

Ted brightened, just a bit. "My daddy sent you?" Then he was all hostility again. "Goddamn it, I almost died in here! What the hell took you so long? It's just one damn hotel!" And then the guy changed angles again. "Who did this to me, anyway? They hit me over the head before I got a look at 'em."

"There's no time to explain. We have to get out of here now." Meda said quickly.

"All right, fine. I'm right behind you two."

Turning away, Meda said, "All right, let's get the hell out of here."

Veronica went ahead and poked Arcade back to attention ("So my considerable medical talents _weren't_ needed?" "Nope." "Well, there goes my fragile sense of adequacy. Don't worry, I'm sure I'll recover.") and, as a party of five plus one hanger-on, they snuck upstairs again. And if they'd found an unfortunate White Glove on the stairwell, he probably would have been introduced to the dangers of the lowly staircase.

Meda carefully crept to the area just behind the bar—for a gourmet restaurant or whatever _The Gourmand_ was pretty lacking when it came to staff—and signaled for everyone to follow. And there, for a while, they waited until Mortimer finished his speech about how he'd tricked the White Glove society into eating human flesh again.

Then the courier vaulted over the bar, dashed up to Mortimer, and shouted, "Not so fast, Mortimer!"

Ted, for his part, took it as his cue to follow.

"What the—? Who is this intruder?" Mortimer was slightly slow on the uptake, in Veronica's opinion.

Meda's grin could best be described as "evil." And she talked pretty loud when she wanted to, "Bad news, Mortimer. No one's eating the boy you kidnapped tonight."

"What are you—? Why is he here? Who are we eating right now?" Mortimer was also completely off his game.

"Sorry, Mortimer! Secret recipe. It isn't human, though, I can tell you that much." Meda said brightly.

Mortimer looked horrified. "No! These are lies! I never kidnapped anyone. And even if I did, there's no harm done. He's alive, after all."

Meda replied, "Too late, Mortimer, you've said too much already."

And with that, Mortimer turned to the rest of the White Gloves, scowling. "You're all hypocrites! How can you claim to be connoisseurs yet deny yourself the greatest of all meats?" He shook his head. "I am ashamed to have ever called everyone here family. This isn't over, though."

Meda raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"I'll begin anew." Mortimer declared, ignoring her. "The White Glove Society will never achieve the greatness of my new order. You'll all hear from me again."

He started to run—he _did_ run—but he didn't get far. Boone had almost gotten to his feet, ready to bring the suit-wearing bastard down. Veronica was even closer. But Meda slipped a hand under the edge of her dress and her hand blurred.

Mortimer fell.

Then she walked up to the man with the six-inch knife in his back and stomped on the exposed handle. He stopped moving eventually.

Later, the White Gloves cleared his body away and Marjorie thanked them all for their help with caps and a promise that they'd be allowed to take weapons into the hotel anytime they wanted. They were on their way back to the Lucky 38 by ten o' clock.

Veronica had to ask, though. At least the others had gone on ahead, barring ED-E. "Hey, Meda?"

"Hm?"

"Why did you kill Mortimer like that?" Veronica asked curiously. And a little concerned—the woman's face had been completely blank.

"Oh. That." The courier looked away. "While I was getting my clothes, I stopped by to talk to Mortimer, see what he knew."

"And?"

"Turns out I had to say I was a cannibal before he'd tell me anything." Meda said, her voice oddly flat. "And when he said how much trouble that Gunderson kid being grabbed was, he gave me a couple of options to solve his little main course problem."

Veronica did not like where this was going.

Meda went on, "So, aside from kidnapping some guy called…Carlyle St. Clair, I think, or just framing someone else for Ted ending up dead, he said I could lock one of you guys in the freezer and call it good."

Veronica felt the blood drain from her face.

"He even had little _comments_ for everyone," she said bleakly. "Like how they could skip the marinade for Cass's liver, or Boone would probably be gamey, and Arcade was kinda thin but it'd work…"

"I guess I was okay then?" Veronica joked weakly.

"Hah. I didn't stay to listen to that part." Meda muttered. She shook her head. "So, now you know. But you can still have the dress. I promised."

"Really?" Veronica asked, pushing the memory of Mortimer away. He was dead. It was over.

"Yep."

ED-E beeped. Then his radio clicked on.

_"She'll make you take your clothes off_

_And go dancing in the rain _

_She'll make you live her crazy life _

_But she'll take away your pain _

_Like a bullet to your brain_

_Upside inside out_

_She's livin' la vida loca _

_She'll push and pull you down _

_Livin' la vida loca"_

"ED-E, you have a weird sense of humor." Veronica said.

The eyebot beeped again and floated off.


	16. The Fort

**A/N:** You can bet they'll be back. :D

I might be horribly insensitive, but I think there's something hilarious about a brutal dictator like _Fallout: New Vegas_' Caesar getting cancer. Karma?

* * *

><p><strong>The Fort<strong>

* * *

><p>"…Arcade, is anyone looking over here?" Meda asked as they walked away from Fortification Hill.<p>

"You mean aside from the _dozens_ of Legionaries and their dogs and the slaves?" the Followers doctor asked sarcastically. "No."

"Obviously, they're jealous of the fact that you're taller than any of them." Veronica cut in brightly. "Anyway, we're due to go Fiend hunting in a bit, so hurry up."

As to what, exactly, they were supposed to be hurrying for…

In the week since dealing with Mortimer and the White Glove Society, the courier had mostly been going on solo missions. Well, in the sense that she generally was running around Freeside with only ED-E or Rex as an escort. It was kind of worrying to have her gone—mostly because her companions were (rightly) convinced that she wouldn't survive without them for too long—but she inevitably returned after helping the Freeside addicts or running errands for the King, or something similar.

So when she came back and announced that she was going to head out east, Arcade was convinced that it was just an overdue return to her insanity. But, as it turned out, she was more than making up for lost time.

Visiting _Fortification Hill_? He'd given her an earful about that once he realized where they were going (granted, only once they arrived under escort from _Legionaries_, Jesus Christ), but she'd said something about listening to what the man had to say and then leaving as fast as possible. Which…he supposed he could understand, if what he knew about Meda was true. She was weirdly inquisitive even about things and people she was going to kill in the near future.

Or maybe that was where it came from…

Veronica seemed to find it all kind of funny, once the initial shock wore off. And after Meda emerged from Caesar's tend unharmed.

And after Meda, for some reason she didn't bother to explain, decided to upgrade all of the Securitrons instead of blowing them up like the knife-wielding maniacs outside wanted them to. But she seemed to think it wouldn't matter, and it didn't.

After presumably lying through her teeth and telling Caesar that the bunker of Securitrons was indeed in little bits instead of equipped with shiny new rocket launchers, they left. Aside from the trip back to Cottonwood Cove, where no one talked because the Legion boatman happened to be there, it seemed almost as though the meeting with Caesar didn't happen at all.

But when they were far enough away from Cottonwood Cove (and therefore all the psychopaths that lived there), Meda started giggling.

"What's so funny?" Arcade asked irritably—because, seriously, they'd just barely avoided being doused in tar and set on fire or _crucified_ or any number of other horrible deaths. Which might have been why she was laughing, actually—anxiety did funny things to people's heads.

"Did it really take you this long to get something Caesar said?" Veronica quipped.

Meda blinked, looking at each of them in turn. "Actually, no. More like something that concerns Caesar that _he_ hasn't got yet but I can't make fun of him to his face for."

_…Explanation imminently necessary_. He was _not_ going to try and decipher the courier's haphazard approach to syntax before lunch. Particularly if she wanted to make all her words run together because she was _just that excited_. "I hope you're planning on slowing down and explaining that to those of us who happen not to have _holes_ in our heads."

Meda frowned briefly, but it was gone when she shrugged right afterward. "Actually, it's pretty simple. You know how the Legion banned most medical technology?"

"Yeah," Veronica said, "though pretty much everyone thinks it's a pretty stupid move—that perfectly suits a bunch of slaving jerkwads like them."

"But yes, we do know about the ban. I doubt there are many people who don't." Arcade cut in, hoping that Veronica wouldn't drive the conversation too far off-topic. "What about it?"

"Well…" Meda paused. "Okay, you know how I was born NCR and help out the Followers a lot?"

"Yes." Arcade replied, wondering where this was going.

"I used to be a member of the Followers. Only for about three years, though." Meda scratched the back of her head. "And my dad died of lung cancer when I was twenty." She paused again. "But before that, I took him to the Followers and we all tried to help him out using the pre-War methods. You know, chemotherapy?"

The phrase "not good" had been bouncing around enthusiastically in Arcade's head for a few seconds—mostly because father issues were one area he didn't want to touch, ever—but he was also curious. Still, he dutifully rattled off, "I know that it worked for some pre-War cancers if the mutation wasn't particularly stubborn, and that it was heavily based on the idea that enough radiation could kill even cancer cells while sparing the rest. And that before the bombs fell, it wasn't quite as common, though there were carcinogens everywhere. And one of the side effects...was…" He stopped. "Oh, you're _joking_."

"Nope." Meda's grin was, again, a thing of evil.

"I'm missing something." Veronica said, looking slightly put out that she didn't get it immediately.

Arcade almost couldn't believe it. "Caesar has cancer. You're sure about this?"

"Pretty damn sure. Though I don't know what type—wait, maybe…" Meda stopped, clearly thinking something over.

"So the guy who won't let any of his followers use medicine tried using medicine anyway? See, this is what I was saying about them being a bunch of jerkwads with no good points. At all." Veronica summed up. "But how do you _know_ he has cancer?"

"He's completely bald." Meda replied. "I know it doesn't seem like much, but Caesar should at least have _eyebrows_ if it was normal." She grinned. "Combine that with what Silus said about delaying their plans because of 'headaches' and the broken Auto-Doc I saw in his tent…"

"…Oh, that's _beautiful_." Veronica said gleefully.

Arcade decided to be the one to inject some sense into the conversation. "But whether he has a type of brain tumor or not, it won't change the timetable for the Legion attacking the Dam. And while I imagine the NCR higher-ups would find it amazingly ironic and probably rather funny, it also doesn't mean they get any relief from Legion attacks in the meantime."

"Oh, I know." Meda said, still smirking at the thought of Caesar's misery. "But I think…we could send a message."

When she got that look on her face… "How many tons of dynamite are we talking about?" Arcade asked.

"Oh, we might not even need any. I'm making this up as I go along."

Veronica sighed, but not like she was annoyed, and said, "Just like old times, then? We'd better go grab Boone. He won't want to miss this."

"I'd think he'd think the Caesar thing was funny, if his sense of humor wasn't totally nonexistent." Meda replied.

Arcade made a mental note to start packing extra stimpaks as soon as they got back to the Strip. Whatever the courier planned, it was probably going to involve at least _someone_ ending up dead.


	17. Cottonwood Cove

So, Cottonwood Cove is a bit of an anticlimax. Just imagine how you tore the place apart to the tune of screaming Legionaries.

* * *

><p><strong>Cottonwood Cove<strong>

* * *

><p>It was the second time all of them had been gathered for one "mission," as Arcade referred to them.<p>

"Decisions, decisions." Li remarked quietly, sitting on a rock overlooking Cottonwood Cove.

"About what?" Boone asked in an undertone. He was about three feet to her left and had once again borrowed her binoculars. He had nearly memorized the guard patrol…but then, he'd been here before. A long time ago. Not as many red skirts as there used to be.

"I don't know if I want to pay these bastards back for Camp Searchlight or just kill everyone with a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire." Li replied, frowning a little. "And who's supposed to be running this place, again?"

"An unpleasant fellow who calls himself Aurelius of Phoenix." Arcade answered, equally quiet, since Boone probably didn't care and Li had apparently forgotten that they'd met the person in question not too long ago. Perhaps her ability to remember names was a little impaired. "One of Caesar's top lieutenants, most likely posted here because it's the largest slave auction site on this side of the Colorado River."

"…Boone, do you remember where your old sniper's nest was?" And this was something that struck Arcade as incongruous and Boone as downright creepy. "Just…go there and get ready. I'll explain later."

"…All right." Boone's voice was even more harsh than normal, but he gave Li her binoculars and took off. After a moment, ED-E followed, beeping all the way.

Li, meanwhile, waved for the rest of their raiding party to join them on the hillside. And apparently she had gathered three Stealth Boys for just this occasion. And all of them knew who was going to get them if Boone was going to be on sentry duty, though there was still one question up for grabs—what, exactly, were they going to do to Cottonwood Cove?

"Got a plan to go with all that tech?" Cass asked.

"Yeah, I think." Li said.

"We're gonna need something a little more solid than 'I think,' Boss." Raul put in. "And I hope you're not expecting us to take on a Legion outpost as a _distraction_."

"Not quite." Li handed two of the Stealth Boys to Cass and Lily, keeping one for herself. Then she started drawing in the dirt. "There are three slaves in the pen right now, and we need to get them out. But we also need to kill all the Legionaries between them and the road, or else they'll all get shot trying to escape."

"What if they have bomb collars?" asked Veronica.

"Then that's something I'm going to have to deal with." Li looked down at the camp. "I can pick any lock I have to if I put my mind to it. And I know enough about explosives to not set them off."

"And if you can't deactivate the collars?" Raul asked. "Then what, Boss?"

"Then I find Aurelius of Phoenix, mug him for a key, and get everyone out in a blind panic." Li replied dryly. "But I don't think it'll come to that."

"…Let's just assume it will." Arcade muttered. "Where are we supposed to be?"

"Your faith in my abilities is amazing, it really is." Li snapped back. She sighed. "The plan is for Lily and me to sneak into the camp and let the slaves out—well, I will. Grandma, you're going to handle the guards."

"Sounds like a bit of weed-whacking, pumpkin." Lily agreed. "Grandma's been putting it off for a mite too long."

…Well, it was fairly clear that the nightkin was more detached from reality than usual today.

"Veronica, Arcade, Raul, you're going to be on that hill over there." Li went on, pointing at a different chunk of the landscape. "See the barrels? Be ready to knock them over and into the town."

"…That wouldn't happen to be what you were referring to when you said you would take revenge for Camp Searchlight, is it?" Arcade asked after a minute or two.

"Just wait for my signal and you'll see." Li said.

"This is going to end badly…" Arcade muttered nonetheless.

"And finally, Rex is going to be with Boone on this one—picking off the few guards that make it up the road a bit, since I don't think any of us is going to be in much of a position to defend fleeing refugees or pick off escaping Legionaries." Li stopped drawing in the dirt. "Everyone know what they're gonna be doing?"

There was a chorus of "Yes" in various intonations and accents.

"Good." Li said. "Let's make those Legion bastards pay."

And so they did.

The refugee family escaped unscathed. Li, Boone, ED-E, Rex, and Lily butchered the Legionaries on guard. As for the Legionaries that survived the stealth assault on Cottonwood Cove by simply not being within easy reach of knives and sledgehammers, they didn't do so well either.

This was mostly because, on the courier's signal, several dozen barrels of radioactive waste was dumped onto Cottonwood Cove.

And as far as historical refusals of employment go, the courier had them all beat.


	18. Sticky Notes

So, the Courier is off to take on the first DLC, Dead Money. This is going to end well.

Not.

This is also about as close as we're gonna get to seeing her thoughts for quite a while.

* * *

><p><strong>Sticky Notes<strong>

* * *

><p><em>Everyone –<em>

_I'm not very good at goodbyes. And I don't even know if this is going to be one, which makes it worse._

_Oh, believe me, this isn't something that has to do with any of you. I just need to confirm a couple of things and take a job—sort of like how I really ought to have, given that the NCR doesn't really pay all that well and I'm not really the kind of person they'd give pensions to. Not enlisted and all that._

_So, anyway, I think I'll be gone for a week at the least. There are rumors of some place called the Sierra Madre—a hotel, I think—that has a lot of pre-War treasure that I think I can make use of. Maybe I can reinforce somebody's economy. I'm not totally sure, but I think it's something I have to check out alone. If it looks good, I'll come back and we'll break out the shovels or something._

_Also, there are little individual notes for everyone if you look around your bunks. Don't read anyone else's notes, please—I'm not precisely sure which ones will end up getting someone shot. Not necessarily just us, either._

_—The Courier_

_P.S.: Arcade, stop eating every damn thing in the fridge or else I'll find a way to put you on a diet if it's the last thing I do._

_P.P.S.: DO NOT SELL THE PALADIN TOASTER._

_P.P.P.S: If anyone sees Benny's Securitron, shoot it._

* * *

><p><em>Boone—<em>

_I know I said I'd explain how I knew about the sniper's nest. So, here goes:_

_The Legion's largest slave-trading post was Cottonwood Cove. With a couple hundred skirt-wearing fucktards down there, there's no fucking way you got close enough to see what happened to Carla from ground level. If you did, you wouldn't be alive._

_You had to have known there was one place the Legion wouldn't see you. And that's where you took the shot from—no other option, and all that. And I found a box in a little hidden alcove the last time I went to Cottonwood Cove, and the box had a Gobi campaign sniper rifle in it. First Recon is one of the very, very few groups that has any chance whatsoever on getting their hands on a pre-War, automatic, scoped rifle that still functions well enough to use for actual combat._

_And I think you locked the box away because that's the gun that killed Carla._

_Now, I'm not going to go over stupid shit like how you didn't deserve to have to make that kind of choice. You should already know that I think that it shouldn't have happened to you. I don't know if you think that way or not—probably not—but it's just something I found out and made a few guesses on. And I'm sorry if it hurt you because I did._

_If you're wondering about the gun, I put it back and melted the lock shut with Arcade's laser pistol. He doesn't know why I did it, and I don't plan on telling him._

_—Li_

* * *

><p><em>Veronica—<em>

_If you really want, we can go see how the Brotherhood of Steel is doing. I know it's been a long time since I said I was okay with the Brotherhood and you've probably been wondering if I was ever going to act on it. So I guess I will. _

_I'm not totally sure what I should be doing—can we even meet with the elders and stuff if I'm NCR and it hasn't been all that long since HELIOS ONE and that lovely little clusterfuck…? I guess we'll find that out eventually. _

_And if you're wondering why I don't want anyone to sell the Paladin Toaster, it's because I don't trust the Brotherhood Paladins any farther than I can throw them (and wouldn't that be something hilarious to see…). It's nothing personal—I've never talked to one and I'm pretty sure having ED-E along or owning a Pip-Boy 3000A is probably going to get on someone's bad side if I'm not careful. And if that happens and I can't talk anyone down, I want to be the one that walks away._

_But I want to give them a chance. So, since I know you, I'm going to keep my promise if I come back alive. See you then._

_—Meda_

* * *

><p><em>Cass—<em>

_In case you're wondering, I hid the whiskey behind the Sunset Sarsaparilla on the second shelf. Not sure if Arcade drinks, but I don't want Boone getting into that stuff and drinking himself to death, and I know he hates that sugary sweet stuff we pick up all over the place. If you want to add more stuff to hide it, there's Nuka-Cola under my bed. Don't ask why._

_Also, if Arcade decides to go to the Silver Rush while I'm gone, don't go with him. Jean-Baptiste Cutting wants to test out his new laser rifle on you and I want to be there to rip his fucking face off and feed it to him if he tries. I have a couple of problems to sort out with that bald bitch Gloria anyway (and it might be related to how I've been stealing 10% of her stock every day since she hired me that one time). The Gun Runners should be okay, though. There's a couple thousand caps in the box by the elevator if you need a new shotgun or somebody randomly comes down with the flu, but the whiskey fund is by the fridge. Remember that._

_Try to keep everyone from dying, okay? And try to avoid the Tops if you can, since I don't think I made a good impression there and…well, that might be because I killed their chief or something. _

_Also, make sure Rex gets fed. Everyone else will probably forget and I don't want to have to explain to the King that we somehow killed his dog._

_Take care of yourself, Cass._

_—Li_

* * *

><p><em>Arcade—<em>

_You should really take lessons if you're going to try and lie about so many different things._

_Clue one: You recognized the vertibird. They're primarily NCR, but the NCR got them by salvaging tech from Enclave-controlled Navarro thirty years ago. _

_Clue two: Don't know if you've noticed, but the two major groups that use energy weapons out here are the Van Graffs and the Brotherhood of Steel. You are neither._

_Clue three: ED-E's an Enclave eyebot and you knew it. So did I, but that's because I got to hear a transmission from an Enclave scientist—Whitley, probably ED-E's creator—talking to someone in Navarro. Navarro's been a blasted wreck for years. _

_Clue four: Doctor Henry told me he was in the Enclave and you knew who he was. I don't think he cares much anymore if somebody realizes this, since he's old and I get the impression there's no way Marcus's people will turn on him when he's helping. And Calamity doesn't seem to give a shit._

_So, following a ghoul's example, I won't either. I'm not going to tell anyone unless you suddenly snap worse than NCR high command and dissolve into maniacal laughter, which we both know isn't gonna happen. With that in mind, you're still my friend and I don't think I'm going to let this little revelation get in the way of that. Thirty years is a long time—the likelihood that they'd let a six-year-old on Enclave missions is less than zero, so I don't hold you responsible for the things the Enclave did then. And besides that, it doesn't make sense to blame someone for something they can't help. Might sound stupid now, since after everything you're probably not all that interested in trusting a crazy courier with your secrets, but I take this kind of thing seriously. I will **not** break a promise like this one, and I promise not to tell anyone that you used to be in the Enclave._

_Maybe someday I'll tell you why. It'll probably be when I'm on the edge of a breakdown myself, but you never know._

_And stop eating everything in the fridge. I don't care if you're half a foot taller than everyone who's not Lily—either buy food like the rest of us or donate to the rations fund so I at least have some time to prepare._

_—Meda_

* * *

><p><em>Grandma Lily—<em>

_Take your medicine at half-doses and look after everyone, okay? They act like adults, but I don't think they quite understand everything that goes into it sometimes._

_Be back soon._

_—Meda_

* * *

><p><em>Raul—<em>

_I won't pretend to know for sure what goes on in that head of yours. You've got a few too many decades on me to be predictable. Not sure if that's a ghoul thing or an elder thing or both._

_But I know this: whatever baggage you've got, you can talk to me about it. Maybe there'll be a solution somewhere in all this babbling. You never know._

_And while you might be the old man in this ragtag bunch of misfits, don't try to blend into the background. I happen to like it when you shut Arcade down. Even if it tends to happen to **me** more, especially when I'm sleep-deprived._

_When I have time, we're going hunting for Fiends. Cook-Cook's been alive for a little too long._

_—Boss_


	19. Followers' Outpost

I decided that there ought to be at least one case where the courier makes the wrong decision for someone's happiness.

Unfortunately, Veronica is the target today.

* * *

><p><strong>Followers' Outpost<strong>

* * *

><p>Meda opened the door. The scent of copper hit them like a metaphysical fist, making the courier pause with one foot in the room. Veronica pushed past her, wide-eyed and staring. So much blood…No, those poor patients… There were bodies everywhere. And there was even a little pile of ash on the floor where someone must have been standing when a laser rifle hit them. Doctor Alvarez…<p>

"Oh no. No-no-no-no-no-no… This can't be happening." Veronica whispered. But denial didn't make it go away. It never did.

What she _wanted_ to do was curl into a ball and cry for a while. Maybe she would, later, but there was no way this was all an accident. Somehow, this had to be her fault. Hadn't Meda said yesterday that nothing every really happened at the Followers' outpost? Well, now it had and Veronica was sure it was her fault. It had to be!

Meda looked to the right and pulled out a weapon that looked like a miniature chainsaw, but in the shape of a knife. "I don't suppose you just happened to come along after Fiends attacked, did you?"

Veronica forced herself out of her internalized hell and looked up.

There, standing over the bodies of the patients and doctors in the next room, was a Brotherhood paladin. Meda stood in front of him, between him and Veronica, with that weird weapon at her side. But the armored man simply looked over the courier's head and said, "Sharing knowledge with an outsider organization. I knew Veronica couldn't be trusted."

No, no, no, no, please—!

"We tracked your movements a long way. But it was worth it to catch her in the act." The man's laser rifle was pointed at Meda's stomach. "Passing Brotherhood secrets to outsiders is the lowest form of treason. What have you got to say for yourself?"

It's my fault! It's my fault they all died! Veronica stared at the man, wishing to say something—a scream, a denial, anything—but the words got all jumbled up before they reached her lips and her mouth wouldn't work. Why couldn't she say anything?

"She hasn't shared any secrets. You don't have any proof otherwise." Meda protested.

"She has made her intentions plain. We will not risk any further damage," the paladin replied.

"Cute." Meda said waspishly, blithely ignoring the laser rifle. "And I'm sure your precious Codex isn't going to protect you after you massacred my _family_—particularly when I decide to return the favor. The Followers might be pacifists. I'm not."

Wait, she wasn't—no! She wasn't going to hurt them!

She was. The lead paladin got to say, "In the name of the Elder, I hereby sentence you to dea—urk!" and only got that far because he was taller than the courier. She needed to reach up to bury the chain-knife in the joint between his armor and helmet and rev it up.

Veronica decided then and there that she had to fight. Maybe the Brotherhood wanted her dead. Maybe it was just these four. But the courier had at least tried to help her teach the Brotherhood that maybe huddling in the dark wasn't a good idea, had suggested helping the Followers in the first place, and seemed really happy about Veronica getting a chance to use her knowledge for other people's sake.

She was in full T-51b power armor because Meda had jury-rigged together the suits of fallen paladins, arguing that the dead had a responsibility to their living relatives as much as the reverse was true, and she had a ballistic fist bought from the Crimson Caravan Company. Meda was unarmored, as usual, since they hadn't expected trouble like this.

Veronica brought her right fist—the one with the Paladin Toaster—up and cracked the paladin with the gatling laser in the face. The shockwave rattled up her arm and his helmet crumpled under the blow.

It almost wasn't fair. In close quarters, no one could dodge anything. This was bad news for Meda, the sole unarmored combatant in the entire room. But because she inevitably knocked their weapons away when she was going in for the kill, it was difficult to aim long energy rifles in such a small area. Their real threat was Veronica, who had been allowed to keep the Paladin Toaster glove and now was using it to devastating effect. The blows hurt, yes, but not physically in Veronica's case. Her heart was breaking.

It broke again and again as she kept killing. At this rate there wasn't going to be anything left to break.

Meda gave an angry hiss of pain as a laser rifle shot sliced through her clothes to her stomach and burned, but she still got the chain-knife into the gap between the helmet and shoulder armor again. Then the chain-knife made a noise like a revving motor and there was blood everywhere. And then there were no more paladins to fight.

Veronica sank to her knees, tears running down her face. Meda collapsed on top of a dead paladin, clutching her stomach and swearing under her breath.

"God, I did this. This is my fault. Why didn't I see this coming?" Veronica murmured. "Of course they'd track me. Of course they'd assume the worst. Sure, I left them. But that didn't mean I'd ever be free of them." She ran a gloved hand over her face. Her voice cracked. "I should've known I was beaten before I began. I just…I had to try, you know?"

"You didn't control the people who did this." Meda replied harshly, digging through her pockets for some kind of medication.

"No…I don't, do I? If I did, none of this would have happened." Veronica shook her head, her eyes downcast.

Meda rolled up her left sleeve, found a vein, and injected a syringe of Med-X into it. She sighed with relief. Then she staggered to her feet—Med-X wasn't terribly dependable if you wanted to be lucid after using it—and walked over to where Veronica was sitting. "Veronica, listen to me. This was not, is not, and can't ever be your fault." She held out a hand.

"It doesn't make anyone less dead." Veronica replied, standing up with the courier's help.

"No, but that's not the point." Meda said, wincing a little as she walked around the building's bare rooms. Med-X dulled pain, but laser burns were nasty things. "The point is that it was _their_ decision to come here and kill the Followers. And those kinds of choices are what define somebody more than anything else. They were murderers, so we killed them. End of story."

"…Yeah, I guess." Veronica said quietly.

Meda looked at her, biting her lip, and finally seemed to come to a decision. She fished around in one of her jacket pockets and handed Veronica a slightly flat box. No, a holotape. There was a label made of tape that had "For Veronica" written on the front. "Here, take this."

"For me? You shouldn't have." Veronica joked weakly, looking down at the disk. It just wasn't in her to try for comedy yet.

"I didn't." Meda said, frowning a little. "You told me once that Elder Elijah was like a father to you. I met him."

"What?" Veronica squeaked. "You did? Where? Oh my God, I mean…I thought… I don't even know what I thought might have happened to him." The courier's expression brought her back down to earth. "But…you don't have a 'this is good news' expression on your face."

"It didn't go well." Meda said. Her eyes were even darker than usual. "In the end, it was me or him, or my friends, and I couldn't abandon them or anyone here in the Mojave. I wasn't even sure it was the same Elijah until we found that terminal in Novac."

"You killed him?" Veronica hadn't expected that. She didn't want to think that the courier would have killed an old man in cold blood. Maybe it didn't sound like it…but Elijah had been her mentor. Almost family. And it hurt.

"I did." Meda admitted. Her face was rigid. "But I brought that back after I found it. Didn't know it was for you for sure, but I've never met any other Veronicas in the Brotherhood of Steel." She sighed. "Try unlocking it."

"…It doesn't matter." Veronica said finally. "He died when we all retreated to Hidden Valley. I didn't expect to see him again. No one did." Maybe, there was a chance… "Did he say anything when you met him? Anything…anything at all?" About me?

Meda nodded at the tape. "That has everything, I think." She was holding back. Veronica knew it and Meda knew that she knew as much. But with Elijah's last words in her hands, she could let that go.

Veronica decided to watch the holotape. Meda wordlessly began dragging bodies away to be buried. She wasn't that big, and it would take forever and she'd probably pull something, but she waved off Veronica's offer of help and that, it seemed, was that.

It was nearly an hour before Veronica had worked her way through the rambling last words of her mentor and finally had something to say. It took a while to make her mouth work when the words kept getting caught in her throat, but that was fine. The courier just kept digging until she had enough sorted out.

"That was…that was hard to watch." Veronica said when the Meda started to break ground for the third grave. She wasn't digging all that fast.

"Did it make any sense?" Meda asked, pausing to rub her eyes with a dusty sleeve.

"The parts I understood? Doesn't matter. Past all the garbage, all it amounted to was goodbye." Veronica explained, smiling faintly. Yes, her life was hell. Yes, sometimes things just seemed to pile up around her and sometimes she didn't know what to do. And, that, like a lot of things lately, was painful but…

Meda gave her a funny look.

"Sorry…feel a bit out of it. Head's spinning a bit." Veronica said. Then, because she'd been playing with the holotape a bit, she got an idea. "Oh. Oh!" Her smile was back, but a little wider now. "I think he left me a gift. Maybe I can use it better than he did."

"One last thing." Meda said, standing up straight. She linked her hands together and stretched them over her head. "Did you know a paladin named Christine Royce?"

For the love of God, was there no end to the horrible revelations the courier had for everyone she met? Veronica froze, waiting for the bad news.

But Meda looked curious, not like she expected to be punched halfway to the Strip. So Veronica took a gamble. "Yeah. She was…the _one_, you know? Is she alive?"

"Yep. Jaded, bald, and a little sad, but she was okay last I saw her. She even has her own nightkin to look after." Meda replied. Her smile wasn't very strong, but it was there. "After the Dam, and whatever follows, I'll see if I can't get her to come back."

"I…thank you." Veronica said in a strangled voice—it was all she _could_ say. How did Meda know so many people she loved? And even if Elijah hadn't…whatever it was that could have gotten him out alive, Christine would listen to the courier and it'd all be okay, right? "But…why?"

Meda's smile was a little sad. "I know you might not feel the same way, but you're kinda like a little sister to me. So I have to do what I can to make my _meimei_ happy."

Apparently, in leaving the Brotherhood, Veronica had found a new family. Even if it was just the crazy courier for now. And even if sometimes this new sister did things that hurt Veronica without realizing. But that wasn't…it wasn't so bad, right? She still had a chance to be happy. With Christine? Just a chance, but better than nothing.

If she thought about it long and hard, and had some time. Maybe then it would be okay.


	20. Primm

Another goofy chapter! Just wait, it'll get ugly soon enough.

Also, college has started for me, so updates might be even more random than they are now.

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><p><strong>Primm<strong>

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><p>It was a cold day in hell the day the Mojave Express actually did anything useful other than drag Li to the Mojave. As it happened, the devil was probably organizing a snowball fight on the day that Cass, Raul, Boone and Li stopped by Primm for some reason that probably had to do with ED-E or finally finding a fucking sheriff for the town. The courier had a way of obfuscating her goals that a proper spy would have given his eyeteeth for.<p>

Well, maybe said spy would have had better luck if he was crazy.

And then it turned out that, for whatever reason, Li was stopping by the Mojave Express main office to see if she had any mail. Somehow, it turned out that she did.

"Since when do _you_ get mail?" Cass demanded, trying to read the courier's letter upside-down. "Aren't you supposed to be the one running the delivery part?"

"I don't know," the courier replied, allowing Cass to take the message and looking over the envelope instead. Her face froze up in horror. "Oh, fucking hell."

Cass looked up from the letter, which was mostly made of indecipherable scribbles and weird pictures anyway. How the hell the courier in charge of this letter had managed to find an address was something Cass wasn't going to speculate on. "What?"

"It's from my mother." Li said in a tiny voice. She looked like she was about find a corner to hide in and to curl into a ball. "Fuck, fuck, _fuck_…"

"How can you even tell?" Cass asked, wondering if she was actually wrong and the letter was the right way up the first time around. Nope, still wasn't legible. Was it _supposed_ to be a bunch of pictograms? "Just looks like a bunch of doodles to me, Li."

"It's in Chinese, Cassidy." Raul said dryly, having seen the letter while she was waving it around. "I'd be pretty surprised if anyone in the Mojave other than the boss-lady can read it at all."

The courier gave a kind of high, terrified laugh that didn't suit her. Evil cackling? Sure. Uproarious laughter? Been there, done that. Then she continued her litany of "_Fuck, fuck, fuck…_" for a while longer before her voice became inaudible.

"You haven't even read it yet." Boone said, and Cass could hear a note of puzzlement in his voice. She figured he didn't have parents to freak out at him over weird things. She sure didn't.

Cass rubbed her temples for a moment, praying for patience from a god that didn't exist, and said in a flat voice, "I'm not seeing how your mother is worse than deathclaws or cazadores. Or Legionaries or Fiends or the other fifty types of crazy fuckers in the wasteland looking to take a chunk out of us."

Li mumbled something that sounded like complete gibberish. She still looked traumatized.

"Might as well read it, Boss." Raul said. "There's no way it can be worse than what you're imagining."

"_You've_ never met my mother." Li replied harshly. She gestured wildly, arms flailing. "Imagine a tiny old lady—tinier than me—with enough wrinkles to look like a topography map. Imagine she wears her graying hair in a bun you could bounce rocks off, that she likes sitting on the front porch in a huge overcoat with a shotgun across her knees. Imagine that she can backhand you hard enough that you see stars for a week. With her _bad_ arm. Imagine that she's never had to work a day in her life because the only job she's good for is killing raiders and they all ran away in terror of her reputation _forty years ago_." The courier shuddered. "And imagine that you were the only one of her boneheaded kids to leave home _without telling her_!"

"…What?" Cass said blankly. Man, when her dad had taken off, he hadn't been able to inspire half as much abject terror, even in the neighbors. And _that_ was after being the Chosen One's favorite traveling companion.

"It's like Boone has a relative." Raul commented, amused. "Well, if he had any crazy old Chinese grandmothers in his family tree somewhere." Of course, he was old enough that he could have been any of their grandfathers' grandfathers' grandfather, but no one brought that up much.

"Don't underestimate old ladies!" the courier hissed.

"Still, it's not like she can backhand you through the mail." Boone said.

"No, it's going to be _worse_."

Cass and Boone combined their glaring ability. The courier looked trapped for a moment before looking at Raul for some kind of assistance, only for the ghoul to roll his eyes.

"…Fine." Li muttered resentfully. Still, she took the letter from Cass and flicked it open with some trepidation. Then she got to reading it.

"What's it say?" Cass wanted to know, less than twenty seconds after the courier had started perusing it. She was mainly curious because of the expressions Li was making, and because, fuck it, Cass was a bit of a busybody. It was probably Li's fault in the first place anyway.

Li looked up to see all three of her current roster of friends staring at her. Well, Boone might have been hiding it better, but that was only because of his ever-present sunglasses. "What, you want me to translate as I go?"

Cass nodded.

"All right. Not like hearing me get verbally eviscerated is really news, though." Still, she cleared her throat and started on it:

"'_Youngest daughter,_

_"'I wish I could be the angry, wrathful mother I'm sure you've been expecting to appear just behind you for years. It would make you feel like you'd run off for a reason. But while it's only been a year since you last gave me any sign that you were even still alive, I expect you've changed quite a bit from the overeager young doctor I remember walking to Angel's Boneyard. Maybe you're not afraid of your terrible mother anymore, though I doubt it._

"'_As I'm sure you know, your oldest sister has two children now with that NCR-enlisted engineer she met in New Reno. Little Cassandra and Cameron are going to be starting at the Followers school in a few months. I seem to remember you saying something about being their schoolteacher when you completed your training and instead you're a few hundred miles away, doing who-knows-what out in the Mojave wasteland without even sending us a postcard to say you're still alive. I don't recall raising my daughters to act like that._'"

The courier stopped and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Fuck, Mom still knows how to make this hurt." Still, she pressed on with her running translation because you just didn't stop halfway through anything in the Mojave. "'_As for your other brothers and sisters, they seem to be doing all right so far. Vinny's little boy caught a nasty fever and we were almost convinced he wouldn't make it, but I'm sure the Followers can look after him well enough. Vance's boy and girl are doing well in the local school—smarter grandchildren have never been born, in my opinion._'" Li paused again. "She's sure not pulling any punches."

"Is your mom always this passive-aggressive?" Cass asked.

"Pretty much. Though she could always go straight for the 'aggressive' part if you pissed her off enough." Li frowned, scanning the rest of the page. "It basically continues like that for a while before running onto the back."

"Then skip the parts where she's pretty much screaming at you in pictograms." Cass shrugged at Li's blank expression. "You don't need to keep kicking yourself over not being in the NCR, Li."

Li rolled her eyes. "Right."

The back of the letter, as it happened, had a different tone entirely.

"'_It's terrible to be here and still hear my grandchildren demanding to know where their dear aunt has gone. Your sisters and brothers are clamoring for news of what you've been up to since joining the Mojave Express circuit. I don't know what to tell them. Should I say that you've been dead since a year ago and that the Mojave was simply too much for you? Should I say that you've been running amok and wiping out entire nests of deathclaws and taking on Legion troops without trouble? Maybe this letter is going nowhere at all and I should expect it back within a month with a stamp saying that the recipient couldn't be found. Maybe you've been ignoring your family for a year because you've failed at some task and feel you've stained the family honor. Or are you just out of reach, Bai, and I should stop trying to find my youngest daughter?_

"'_People tell me I should give up. She's not coming back. But I know my daughter a little too well, don't I? You aren't dead. You may not come back to me completely whole—I'm too much of an old soldier to believe that—but you'll send a sign of some kind to say you haven't forgotten where you come from. I'm at least sure of that much._

"'_With hope,_

"'_Li Hui Tao_'"

The courier folded the letter up and tucked it into one of her many pockets.

"Your name's Bai?" Cass said in disbelief. Because, wow, she could make about a billion puns with that. It was almost too easy. "And your mom has the same first name as your last name? How the hell does that work?"

Yeah, she was distracting herself from the raw pleading Li's mother had managed to fit into a page and a half of writing, but it she had to.

Li shrugged. "It's an old Chinese custom to put last names first." She took the envelope and began to shred it into little bits. "And as far as I'm concerned, 'Mei Bai'—my first and middle names—is for my mother and siblings to use. Nobody else. Got that?"

"Why'd you change it?" Cass asked. "It's not like anyone would have cared."

"It's like calling Raul 'Raul Alfonso Tejada' every time you wanted to get his attention." The courier crossed her arms. Said ghoul shrugged, since he probably would have just ignored anyone who called him by his full name anyway. Anyone who would have used it normally was already long dead. "Or calling you 'Rose of Sharon Cassidy.' It's just awkward, no matter how short my name is."

"Huh. When you put it like that..." Cass shrugged too. "So, are you going to write back?"

Li frowned again. "I don't know. Maybe after we finish off the Fiends." And then the frown was gone, replaced by a strange energy that made the courier bounce in place. "Speaking of, Raul, didn't I say Cook-Cook's been alive for way too long?"

"That you did, boss." Raul said, "Though I have to wonder what plan you have for chasing down a dumb bastard who's up to his eyeballs in Psycho and chases people around with a flamethrower that doesn't involve any of us being set on fire."

"I'll come up with something." Li insisted.

"See, now I know why Arcade was so freaked out this morning." Cass stage-whispered to Boone.

Boone replied, "Not the worst way to spend an afternoon, though."

"…Fuck it, you're all crazy." Cass grumbled.


	21. South Vegas Ruins

For reference, the courier is not insane, precisely.

But on top of being an accomplished liar, she's a pretty good (terrifying) actress.

Or perhaps that's just what I want you to think.

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><p><strong>South Vegas Ruins<strong>

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><p>The basic idea of how to take on Cook-Cook was pretty simple. Get in, kill him, and get out.<p>

Of course, there was a lot more to it than that once the courier's group reached the outskirts of the Fiend leader's territory. With Boone crouched in the shadow of a blasted ruin to get a better look at the Fiend camp, cracked binoculars in hand and a bottle of Cateye nearby, they decided to outline their plans.

After talking to Little Buster, Pretty Sarah, and Major Dhatri, it was clear that Cook-Cook used a flamethrower or other incendiary for his main weapon, while the Fiends around him tended toward shotguns and low-quality rifles when energy weapons weren't available. And given the lack of caravan traffic around southern Vegas because of Fiend presence in the first place, Arcade probably had the only plasma pistol within at least a square mile.

And then there was the matter of that brahmin that Cook-Cook seemed to be very fond of. None of them doubted for a second that Meda would send someone after it—when it came to her enemies, she preferred to prey on their weaknesses whenever possible. Otherwise, it seemed like the majority of her strategies were formed around Lily flattening the opposition with heavy weapons of all types.

"So, we only have a couple ways into Cook-Cook's camp without getting instantly set on fire." Meda said, resting her chin on her open palm. She stared at the map outlined on her Pip-Boy for a while, thinking hard. "And out of all of us, ED-E's about the closest to fireproof since he's basically a giant flying metal eyeball."

ED-E beeped in apparent disapproval—he was much more than a flying metal eyeball.

"Or you could just let Boone and I see if we can make Cook-Cook's head explode from a safe distance." Arcade suggested, once again acting as the requisite sanity for the courier's crazy battle plans. Not that they didn't work, but they tended not to take certain things (like danger) into account, absolutely certain that each member of her group could flawlessly pull off their part.

Not that they'd failed yet, but Arcade thought it was better to be safe than sorry.

"Unfortunately, I want Major Dhatri's bounty, which means the head needs to be intact. Caps are caps." Meda said, shrugging.

"Might I remind you that we get more caps for selling your spare machetes after you've already swapped out the blades and handles six times and are held together with duct tape?" Arcade was also obligated to point this out as quickly as possible—if the courier was going to call him on being evasive, he had no problem returning the favor. Particularly since now she had a _very_ nasty bit of blackmail if she ever needed to keep him in line.

"You can, but it's not going to make much of a difference to me." Meda informed him. She frowned, drumming the fingers of her supporting hand against her cheek. "Look, I'm obligated to take him out. Not because of caps—like you said, I can get those anywhere—but because I had to talk Corporal Betsy into going to get an actual therapist and make sure Ten of Spades didn't blame himself for what happened."

"Still, we need a better plan to go about this." Arcade insisted, because, while he agreed with the courier's motivation, he also realized that the likelihood of them all getting killed was also fairly significant if they didn't have some kind of strategy. When you got down to it, only three members of their party of nine had more-than-human durability, and two of _them_ didn't have opposable thumbs.

"Yeah, well, I'm open to ideas." Meda said, shaking her head. "Because I've gotten about as far as 'rush in and kill that motherfucker.'"

"I figured as much." Arcade muttered.

"Veronica's going in close as usual, right?" Cass asked—she was about fifteen feet away, peeking over the edge of a blasted wall that might have once been brick. She and Veronica had elected not to join the planning session, if only because there was no real point in watching the courier stare at the Pip-Boy map for fifteen minutes.

"Do I _sound_ like I want to have her set on fire?" Meda demanded.

"Kinda!" Cass retorted.

"Shut up." And just like that the courier was back to frowning and looking over her Pip-Boy while ED-E floated around and scanned for incoming Fiends. It was always possible that they could be overheard to soon—they all remembered Ten of Spades' account of how Cook-Cook had ambushed the pair of First Recon snipers originally. It never hurt to be careful.

Speaking of, wasn't ED-E acting a little oddly?

"What about using Lily to mow down the Fiends with the Avenger?" Arcade suggested.

"We didn't bring it." Meda replied.

"Baiting them and then having myself, Raul, or Boone kill them as they come out of the ruins?" He wasn't even sure why he was bothering anymore.

"Better." Meda was still frowning. "Though I wonder if…"

ED-E chose that moment to beep loudly and smack into the back of Arcade's head. Yep, the robot definitely had it out for him.

"Oh, son of a _bitch_." She was looking at ED-E, too. But her frown had become a scowl and she was standing all of a sudden, looking between her Pip-Boy and the open plain that was the buffer zone between their hideout and the Fiend camp.

And the Fiends were out in force.

_CRACK_! Apparently, from his vantage point about twenty feet to their right, Boone had made a decision. And without a silencer, too.

"Ambush." Meda hissed, picking up the fire ax she'd taken for the raid. "Arcade, I don't know if you know anything about flanking, but—"

"Done and done," was his reply—after retrieving a multiplas rifle from the Followers' safehouse, it was really more a question of positioning than firepower. And if he moved fast, the Fiends wouldn't be able to get a clear shot before he vaporized their torsos.

"Good. Go." Meda gave him a quick nod and vanished into the shadows.

Well, since the situation had gone completely to hell, it was time to scatter and improvise.

Standard operating procedure, really.

None of them were really helpless, even when caught by surprise. Part of the reason they'd managed to survive as long as they had was because each and every member of the courier's traveling band of do-gooders was an expert in their field. And while that might have given the impression of them being specialists in repairing broken items, or in hacking computer terminals, or even administering medicine, it really came down to combat.

And from Arcade to Veronica, they had all the tools necessary to make use of their deadly skill. The courier had gathered thousands of caps for pretty much just that exact purpose.

Twenty Psycho-dosed Fiends was going to be a cakewalk.

_THUD. CRACKCRACKCRACK._

Lily flattened one into the ground on her first swing, slashing repeatedly to make sure he wasn't getting up anytime soon. Raul had her back, effortlessly shooting one incoming Fiend right between the eyes. They worked best when they were paired together—while Raul had about as much of a knack for melee as a deathclaw for waterskiing, Lily was a monster in close quarters who could easily keep the relatively-fragile ghoul from getting squashed or shredded.

_KA-CHAK. CRACKCRACKCRACK**CRUNCH**_!

And then there was Cass, nearly stationary because Veronica was running around crushing skulls in T-51b powered armor and Cass was there to make sure no one got past her. And since her new favorite was drum-fed and she had more shells than she knew what to do with, the Fiends were about to get a taste of lead and Legion coinage.

_CRACK. CRACK. CRACK._

Meanwhile, Boone was trying to keep from going for the head and failing, as the headless corpses in his killzone would attest. Arcade reloaded his multiplas rifle and, after jamming another energy cell into place, covered the approach from the stairwell and south window. Boone took the north and east sides of the building if only because there wasn't that much wall left to provide cover otherwise. And given the dead Fiends everywhere, they were doing pretty well from their vantage point.

Below, ED-E zoomed around the battlefield at what used to be rooftop level, firing on any hostiles caught out in the open. Rex snarled, letting the robot lead him to new opponents and flinging himself at any Fiend that dared think he or she was tough enough to take on both a former Enclave eyebot and a cyberdog that was once the favorite warhound of Caesar himself.

**_FWOOSH_**.

And then Cook-Cook made his appearance. The courier didn't.

It wasn't that any of them were really all that afraid of the Fiend leader. Hell, the Fiends themselves didn't even like the guy. But when their fearsome leader showed up, it was like the Psycho-addicted raiders got their second wind.

Cook-Cook, despite expectations, was a normal-sized man who dressed in metal armor and smelled fairly terrible. He was also batshit insane, had a laugh that would have made even the courier pause, and proved all of their assumptions correct when he arrived at the building both Arcade and Boone were taking potshots from. He proceeded to aim his incinerator up the staircase and set the upper floor on fire.

And not coincidentally, the edge of Arcade's labcoat followed suit. So, after he'd scrambled to get it off and succeeded, Boone rolled it into a ball that was _still on fire_ and threw it at the Fiend leader's face. Then both of them fled the roof entirely. Boone jumped and made sure to tuck and roll, while Arcade climbed down with as much speed as he could manage. He, after all, didn't feel like cracking his skull on the concrete in addition to nearly being set on fire.

Cook-Cook shrieked in rage and pursued.

He wasn't really as fast as Arcade or Boone, either. Between the metal armor and the weight of the incinerator (where each of them was carrying their weapon and only that), all he could do was fire at targets who didn't have the stupidity necessary to travel in a straight line.

And when Cass and Veronica arrived to take him on, Cook-Cook got a pair of shotgun blasts to the torso. One was courtesy of Cass and her riot shotgun, while the other was from Veronica's ballistic fist. Cook-Cook went down with a gurgle, though he wasn't dead yet.

But that didn't do anything about his fellow Fiends, who were moving in gleefully while Boone and Arcade were out of position. There were a few too many for Cass to take on without using Veronica as a human shield first.

Boone dropped into a crouch and steadied the barrel of his anti-materiel rifle to give fire support. They could all hear ED-E's happy beeping closing in to reinforce them, along with Rex's barking, which meant that they just had to avoid being shot to death for a few more seconds…

Then, out of nowhere, "_Zip-a-dee-doo-da, zip-a-dee-ay, my oh my, what a wonderful day…_"

Everyone looked up (except Boone, who killed a Fiend while the rest were distracted).

Standing on edge of one of the other wrecked buildings, which Arcade distinctly remembered not liking because the staircase had been demolished, the courier waved at everyone with her left hand. In her right was a pair of brahmin heads. Cook-Cook gave a high, nearly animalistic whine.

"Hey, Cook-Cook, wondering where Queenie went?" Her grin stood out as a white crescent against a face completely covered in blood. "Funny thing, fire axes don't seem designed to be used on stuff at shoulder height, so it took a while longer than I would have liked…"

Cook-Cook howled in fury, surging to his feet and aiming his incinerator at Li, who by then was already moving. She dropped the heads and ducked to the side of the first blast, shouting, "Everyone, move!" Then she ran off, leaping from second floor to wall to another building entirely, with Cook-Cook in pursuit.

Boone's rifle gave another loud crack and a Fiend's head exploded. Just like that, the fight began again.

Arcade's multiplas rifle melted another Fiend's arm to his shotgun. Cass caught one Fiend off-guard and blew his head into a fine red mist. Veronica barreled into another two and punched them to death. ED-E flew in through a gap in the roof cover and a Fiend caught fire. Rex hit one at throat level and took him down. Raul and Lily appeared from the next street over and the slaughter began in earnest.

The next Fiend—the last one standing—caught fire from an incinerator blast as Cook-Cook went berserk, launching fireballs at anything he could see.

Then Li leapt off the ruin she'd been climbing and landed on his head, feet-first. There was a blur of violence that no one could follow. Her fire ax hacked his incinerator to bits and the pilot light was stomped out, and she finished the wild attack with one booted foot planted on his back.

It was only much later that her companions found out what she said to Cook-Cook in his last few seconds. Apparently, Boone had picked up lip-reading at some point.

"Three down, one to go."

The ax came down and it was over.

* * *

><p>Several minutes later:<p>

_Thud_.

Cass nudged the fallen courier with her boot. "Li, get up."

"Mrflble," was the mumbled response, and she didn't move.

Veronica took the opportunity to poke the courier with a stick. Well, at least she was having fun. "I didn't know you could have Psycho crashes."

Arcade rolled the semiconscious woman over and checked her pupils, which were even wider than normal. They still contracted when he aimed a tiny flashlight at her face, though. "I think it's more a question of Psycho crossed with Turbo."

"…And her heart _didn't_ explode?" Cass said in disbelief.

"Guess not." Arcade shook his head in disapproval crossed with disbelief. Lucky didn't quite explain the courier's success. This was ridiculous.

Lily ended up hauling the courier back to the Strip with Raul, Arcade, Veronica, and ED-E while Boone, Cass, and Rex reported back to Major Dhatri about the bounty. Two hundred and fifty caps was not nearly enough money for Cook-Cook's head, but at that point no one really cared. They would in the morning, but in the meantime they just wanted to get back to non-hostile civilization, and did so.


End file.
